Netflix Is Making a New ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ Cinematic Universe of Movies and TV Series
Prepare to walk back through that old wardrobe and return to Narnia. Netflix is bringing C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia back to screens with their very own Narnia cinematic universe.
The streaming service has struck a deal for all new adaptions of Lewis’ children’s fantasy novels, first published in the 1950s. The new projects will come from producer Mark Gordon, along with Lewis’ stepson Douglas Gresham (who produced the Narnia movies) and Vincent Sieber serving as executive producers.
It’s not entirely clear what this new Narnia franchise will consist of, but Gordon said in a statement (via Deadline) that Netflix will “have the capacity to translate the Narnia universe into both stellar feature-length and episodic programming.” So that sounds like we’re getting a bunch of Narnia movies and TV series, and Deadline notes those will likely cross over in the same vein as Marvel and Star Trek. Netflix now holds the rights to all seven books, so we can likely assume we’ll get adaptations of the novels we haven’t seen on the screen yet in addition to some remakes.
Disney and Walden Media produced and distributed the first two Narnia movies, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian, but Disney pulled out of the less successful third, 2010’s The Voyage of the Dawn Trader. After that, the franchise kind of fizzled out of existence. A fourth movie, The Silver Chair, has been on and off for a while, but was finally expected to start production this year with Joe Johnston directing. Entertainment Weekly notes that this new Netflix deal will likely overwrite that project. This could be the fresh start the Narnia franchise needs.
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