WELLINGTON - One of New Zealand's Christmas movie blockbusters due for a high-profile premiere in London - The Chronicles of Narnia - has triggered a row in Britain over its Christian message.

To millions of readers of the original C. S. Lewis books, the story is a childhood tale of wonder and triumph, but a celebrated fantasy author, Philip Pullman, has warned they are stories of racism and thinly veiled religious propaganda that will corrupt children rather than inspire them.

The Observer reported that the Narnia film was also attracting attention for huge use of special effects, and that trailers for the first Narnia film have already drawn comparisons to the style and presentation of The Lord of the Rings.

"It has the same powerful themes of a new world, complete with fantastic creatures and sweeping battle scenes against a beautiful landscape," the newspaper reported.

It said Disney planned to turn the Narnia films into a money-spinning franchise like the Harry Potter series - which could mean a new Narnia film being released at Christmas, complete with spin-off merchandising and toys, every year until 2012.

"But while Disney has bet big on Narnia and now waits with bated breath, there is already one winner in the saga," it reported.

"The film, just like The Lord of the Rings, was shot in New Zealand, which then reaped a tourism windfall.

Now local tour companies are already planning to show visitors around the spot where the Narnia film's climactic battle scene was shot."

Pullman, an avowed atheist is the noted author of a trilogy, His Dark Materials, which has itself drawn strong criticism from some religious groups.

His trilogy, The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, - which are also being filmed - canvass themes of childhood, innocence and sin, through magic, theology, science and morality.

His stories centre on two children who live in parallel worlds surrounded by a huge cast of shape-shifting creatures.

He complained at the weekend that Lewis's books portrayed a version of Christianity that relied on martial combat, outdated fears of sexuality and women, and also portrayed a religion that looked a lot like Islam in unashamedly racist terms.

"It's not the presence of Christian doctrine I object to so much as the absence of Christian virtue," Pullman told the Observer. "The highest virtue, we have on the authority of the New Testament itself, is love, and yet you find not a trace of that in the books," he said.

But the newspaper reported that the criticism was unlikely to derail the giant Disney-Walden production, reportedly made on a budget of between $161 million and $251 million.