Greta Gerwig’s Chronicles of Narnia films will start shooting later this year.
Netflix’s film adaptations of The Chronicles of Narnia books will start filming later this year, according to a report. Greta Gerwig, who co-wrote and directed Barbie last year, is set to start filming the first of her (at least two) Narnia movies in the late summer or early fall. The world of C.S. Lewis’s beloved novels is coming to the streaming giant, who have also recently inked a deal to buy the rights to Roald Dahl’s library, effectively making them the custodians of some of the 20th Century’s most beloved children’s prose books.
Very few details about the movie itself are available yet. Netflix film chief Scott Stuber had previously said they hoped to begin production in 2024, and now What’s On Netflix has a source saying that date will be August.
Between 2005 and 2010, Walden Media produced a trio of Chronicles of Narnia films, adapting less than half of the seven books. Critical and box office reception to the franchise was mixed, and after the first two, Walden parted ways with original distributor Disney and started to work with Fox. A fourth film never got off the ground, but since Disney bought Fox, fans can watch all three of the 2000s-era Narnia adaptations on Disney+.
Since 2018, Netflix has remained relatively quiet on the property, outside of appointing Coco co-writer Matthew Aldrich as the lead architect of the endeavor. In November, rumors emerged that Netflix was hoping to get Gerwig to commit to launching the franchise.
Since they seem to want to expand the world out with TV, it is not immediately evident how slavishly the adaptations will follow the books. If they are pretty close to the source material, there are two likely starting points for the franchise: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the first Narnia novel written by Lewis and the most famous installment of the franchise; and The Magician’s Nephew, the sixth novel Lewis wrote but, as a prequel. That’s the first in The Chronicles of Narnia chronologically, and the one Lewis preferred to be read first. The Magician’s Nephew has never been adapted into live-action (it was to be the next film made in the Fox series after The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but the rights lapsed), which would give Netflix something fresh for viewers to enjoy without drawing comparisons to past adaptations.
