Netflix’s ‘Narnia’ movies update: ‘Barbie’ director teases ‘exciting’ plans
Greta Gerwig has provided on update on her upcoming Narnia project!
The Oscar-nominated American filmmaker had a huge hit this summer with her Barbie movie, which looks comfortably set to be the most successful movie at the 2023 box office.
Following rumours earlier in the year, it was confirmed in July that Gerwig “has a deal with Netflix to write and direct at least two films based on C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia.”
It’s now five years since the streaming service first revealed its plans to adapt British author C.S. Lewis‘s classic children’s fantasy novels, but we’re glad that the adaptations aren’t being rushed.
The most recent Narnia movie to be made was back in 2010 when The Voyage of the Dawn Treader followed Walden Media’s 2005 film of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and its 2008 sequel Prince Caspian.
There are seven of Lewis’s novels, but the final three stories – The Horse and His Boy, The Magician’s Nephew, and The Last Battle – have never been adapted for the screen.
So it’s thrilling for fans that Netflix is aiming to bring all seven stories to life as “stellar feature-length and episodic programming” with a combination of TV series and movies.
We’re still not sure which of the books will be adapted first…
Our bet is on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as it’s the most recognisable title to launch the franchise with, rather than starting with The Magician’s Nephew, but we’ll happily be proved wrong.
While there’s no official news from Netflix on when production will commence, Greta Gerwig spoke to The Empire Film Podcast this week about the current status of the Chronicles of Narnia project.
It wasn’t the most revealing update, but we did learn that she’s started work on the script now that the WGA writer’s strike is over!
“I’m writing and I’m sort of starting to dream and think about what I’m approaching, but definitely I would say the land of Narnia is equally exciting and terrifying,” she told them.
“But I have nothing really to report on it other than… it’s something I actually was talking about before I made Barbie, so that’s been in my subconscious working its way through, but that’s been a pattern for me,” Gerwig said.
“I wrote a draft of Little Women before I made Ladybird, and then I made Ladybird and went back to Little Women, so I kinda have this cadence of leap-frogging things, so I’m always going into my past and going into the future at the same time,” she explained.
It sounds like Narnia is a world she’s been preparing to explore for quite some time, which certainly bodes well.
Greta Gerwig’s Little Women film in 2019 was nominated for six Academy Awards, with Harry Potter actress Emma Watson and James Norton from Grantchester amongst the cast of her adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s novel.
Barbie is out now on DVD and also available to buy digitally – watch the trailer here:
The hit comedy features a number of British stars, including Helen Mirren (The Queen), Emma Mackey (Emily), Connor Swindells (SAS Rogue Heroes), Sharon Rooney (Sherlock), Kingsley Ben-Adir (Peaky Blinders), Jamie Demetriou (Cruella), Ncuti Gatwa (Doctor Who), Nicola Coughlan (Bridgerton), and Emerald Fennell (Call the Midwife).
The Chronicles of Narnia is expected to launch on Netflix in 2025.
A complete collection of the Narnia books is available on Amazon.