The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Witch and the Wardrobe" was complete by the end of March 1949. Lucy Barfield received it by the end of May. When on 16 October 1950 Geoffrey Bles in London published the first edition, three new "chronicles", "Prince Caspian", "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" and "The Horse and His Boy", had also been completed. Lewis's publisher, Geoffrey Bles, allowed him to choose the illustrator for the novel and the "Narnia" series. Lewis chose Pauline Baynes, possibly based on J. R. R. Tolkien's recommendation. Baynes had greatly impressed Tolkien with her illustrations for his "Farmer Giles of Ham" (1949). However,
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