Perry Moore, the executive producer of the successful Chronicles Of Naraia film series, was found dead in his Soho Manhattan apartment Thursday, the victim of an apparent drug overdose. He was found yesterday morning at approximately 9:30 by his partner Hunter Hill in their W Houston Street home. The exact cause of death has yet to be determined, but it appears to have been from an overdose of the painkiller OxyContin. Moore was 39.
Moore was the one responsible for bringing author C. S. Lewis’s classic Narnia book series to the big screen. A fan of the books since he read them as a child, he persuaded Lewis’s stepson Douglas Gresham to sell him the film rights to the series in 2000. At the time of his death in 1963, Lewis was believed to have been against any film adaptations of his work, but Moore was able to convince Gresham that advances in computer generated effects would allow for a faithful recreation of the film’s many talking animal characters.
The resultant film series has grossed over $1.5 billion at the box office and is listed as the 16th highest-grossing film franchise of all time.
In addition to his work on the Narnia films, Moore and Hill co-wrote and directed the film Lake City, which starred Sissy Spacek and Rebecca Romijn.
