The Chronicles of Narnia she felt were upsetting to children. Poskanzer also noted Lewis presented his Christian message subtly enough as to avoid boring children with overt sermonizing. Examples include: Philip Pullman's fantasy series, "His Dark Materials", is seen as a response to "The Chronicles". Pullman is a self-described atheist who wholly rejects the spiritual themes that permeate "The Chronicles", yet his series nonetheless addresses many of the same issues and introduces some similar character types, including talking animals. In another parallel, the first books in each series – Pullman's "Northern Lights" and "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" – both open with
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the rest of Europe. Worldwide, "Narnia" earned $745,013,115 marking it the 55th highest-grossing film of all-time worldwide. It had a worldwide opening of $107.1 million, marking Disney's fifth largest opening worldwide (at the time it was the largest). It is the third-largest movie worldwide among those released in 2005 and it currently still remains the highest-grossing movie of the "Narnia" franchise worldwide, and separately in North America and overseas. Finally, it is also the most successful film of Walden Media worldwide. The film opened with $23,006,856 in 3,616 theatres on its opening day (Friday, December 9, 2005), averaging $6,363