Left to right: Three of the Pevensie children, Susan (Anna Popplewell), Peter (William Moseley) and Lucy (Georgie Henley), are strangers in a strange land in The Chronicles Of Narnia.

NEW YORK -- As books and as movie series, there are fascinating links between The Chronicles Of Narnia and both the Harry Potter franchise and The Lord Of The Rings.

It is not just because all three have British roots and plumb the depths of mythology and fantasy -- on the page and on the screen. The links are more inextricable and direct.

C.S. Lewis, the Irish-born, Oxford-educated professor and author, helped get J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit published in 1939. That extraordinary children's volume was the precursor to Tolkien's epic adult masterpiece, The Lord Of The Rings, which also was influenced by Lewis and published in three volumes in 1955-'56. Lewis is said to have "allowed" Tolkien to use the elf clan in his tome.

In turn, the South African-born Tolkien helped Lewis shape his vision, and his mythological world, when he was writing the seven-volume series, The Chronicles Of Narnia. Both were members of the Inklings, a sometimes squabbling gaggle of Oxford eccentrics who met, drank, smoked, read aloud and meddled in one another's literary affairs.

Tolkien and Lewis argued vociferously over Lewis' choice to invoke known mythology, such as the inclusion of Father Christmas in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, the first Narnia book published.

That was in 1950 and six more volumes would ensue, from the prequel, The Magician's Nephew, to the final instalment, The Last Battle. Then author J.K. Rowling grew up reading the Narnia tales, confessing that they were instrumental in inspiring her to create her own Harry Potter books.

"In some ways," says Andrew Adamson, director of the first live-action, feature-film instalment of The Chronicles Of Narnia, "it was the making of The Lord Of The Rings that helped get this film made -- at least help it get made in a way that was faithful to the book."

In addition, New Zealander Adamson, best known for his work on the animated hits Shrek and Shrek 2, is good friends with fellow Kiwi Peter Jackson, director of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy (and now the King Kong remake).

"So there is just this nice parallel of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis still helping one another. There is a nice symmetry to that."

Mark Johnson, the Oscar-winning producer of The Chronicles Of Narnia, sees other connections and names Harry Potter as a key player in the scenario.

"Well," says Johnson, "I keep citing Harry Potter as being more important to us in the sense that American studios didn't believe that British characters and British stories were of interest to international audiences, specifically an American audience. It was thanks to Harry Potter that they realized that world audiences didn't have a problem with British characters and situations -- if they're done well."

Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, the fourth movie in that series, is one of the biggest hits of 2005. Meanwhile, the stunning technical success of The Lord Of The Rings movies was an enormous influence, Johnson says.

Jackson and the WETA Workshop of Aukland, New Zealand, showed that creating a convincing fantasy world was possible, even in a live action film. "I actually think in a strange way we owe more to Harry Potter just in terms of our getting made and we owe more to The Lord Of The Rings in terms of technology," says Johnson.

WETA worked on Narnia, providing mythological creature concepts as well as weapons and armour while trying to differentiate Narnia from Middle-earth.

Narnia is a parallel world that the four Pevensie children -- led by the youngest, Lucy -- discover through the back of a wardrobe tucked away in Professor Kirke's house. He is the kindly, if intimidating, country gentlemen who agrees to take in the children when they are evacuated from London during the German bombing blitz of World War II.

Upon arrival at Narnia -- which has been locked in a cruel winter for a century because of the evil spell of the White Witch -- the children find harrowing adventure, the heroic Aslan and other fantastical things. These include fauns, centaurs, satyrs, dwarves, minotaurs, minoboars, giants, a fiery Phoenix and a woodland full of talking animals.

At one point, other American producers owned the Narnia rights and planned to shoot the movie in contemporary Brentwood, Calif. The White Witch would tempt Edmund with a hamburger, not with Turkish Delight.

"In hindsight," says Johnson, "you like to say it's stupid but I think it's shortsighted -- everybody clearly wants some guarantee."

That guarantee came more recently with the success of Harry Potter and The Lord Of The Rings. Then Johnson found himself impressed by Adamson's vision, especially because the filmmaker had been so influenced by Narnia as a youngster. "I think he succeeded with it," Johnson says. "It is the fusion of C.S. Lewis' words and Andrew Adamson's eight-year-old imagination."

Swinton, calling herself "the infidel" because she did not read Lewis until cast as the White Witch, now appreciates The Chronicles and read them aloud to her own children.

The books and the movie are important, she says, because the stories engage children at a tender age of eight or nine when they go through "an existential crisis." That crisis involves thinking about "what it is to be alone in the world" and how to survive in that world, she says.

Astonishingly, at least to Adamson, the slim volume of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe is less specific and detailed than he remembered from his childhood.

"When I went back and re-read the book, it was much smaller than I remembered and I think it had expanded in my mind over the years. C.S. Lewis wrote in a way that relied on your imagination. He created very evocative imagery, and yet the only things he described in great detail were very small. He would talk about the food in great detail and breeze over a battle. So (the filmmaking process) was really drawing back on that childhood imagination."

On screen, the epic battle mentioned as anecdote in the book is created in its entirety. And it is done spectacularly, setting up other links to Lord Of The Rings. "It's inevitable," Adamson says of offering Narnia to an audience familiar with Lord Of The Rings and inviting comparisons.

"It's an epic fantasy with a big battle toward the end. There are worse films to be compared to! But I think, ultimately, they are very different!"

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