Greta Gerwig’s “The Chronicles of Narnia” Has Begun Filming
Greta Gerwig’s Narnia adaptation has been in the works for around seven years now, initially announced in 2018 after Netflix acquired the rights to C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia for both films and series. Seven years later, Gerwig’s film has moved past the pre-production stage and has begun filming in London.
“The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew,” as said in its title, is based off The Magician’s Nephew, a prequel to The Chronicles of Narnia series which shows the creation and origins of the fictional world of Narnia. This is an exciting Narnia adaptation, because while three books from The Chronicles of Narnia have already been made into movies – The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in 2005, Prince Caspian in 2008, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 2010 – there has not yet been a film adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew, so Gerwig’s take will be the first take on this particular Narnia novel. An interesting thing to already note about Gerwig’s take is that certain set pieces show a setting change from the novel, going from a Victorian England setting to post-war 1950s England.
Emma Mackey will be playing Jadis, the White Witch, and Daniel Craig will be playing Uncle Andrew. Photos taken of the film set show the main characters of the story, 12 and 11 year olds Digory Kirke and Polly Plumber. The actors for the two leads have been identified as David McKenna and Beatrice Campbell.
There isn’t one hundred percent certainty with the rest of the cast yet. Meryl Streep is heavily rumored to be voicing Aslan, and it’s also rumored that Carey Mulligan is in the film, but the only two completely confirmed castings listed on IMDb are Emma Mackey and Daniel Craig.
The film is set to come out in theaters first on Thanksgiving in 2026, and then come out on Netflix about a month later on Christmas. While Netflix usually will want to release their films exclusively on their streaming platform, apparently Gerwig insisted that the film also get a theatrical release. It’s great that she fought for this, because a project this grand would be robbed if it didn’t get to be shown on the big screen.
Featured image by Tim Alex via unsplash.com