A few weeks ago, Matt Belloni reported that Greta Gerwig had been raising the issue of giving her ‘Narnia’ movies a theatrical release with Netflix’s newly-appointed film head, Dan Lin. However, Netflix wasn’t budging and refusing Gerwig’s requests.
Then you had a followup report, via Empire City, that Gerwig was trying to get out of her Netflix deal for ‘Narnia.’ This might have had to do with Netflix’s refusal to give her the requested theatrical rollout.
We now have an update, courtesy of Belloni, and it looks like Netflix has taken Gerwig’s exit threats very seriously. An IMAX rollout in 2000+ screens is now being discussed for the film(s):
Interesting: Greta Gerwig is talking to IMAX about putting her NARNIA movie on 2000 screens, potentially before it hits Netflix. Huge if this happens.
I’m willing to bet now that Daniel Craig and Rian Johnson will again be pushing hard for ‘Knives Out 3’ to hit theaters, especially if Gerwig gets her theatrical wishes granted by Netflix.
Given their scope and grandeur, Gerwig had allegedly voiced “concerns” about limiting her ‘Narnia’ movies to Netflix’s streaming platform. Belloni mentioned that Gerwig was originally “bummed” by the streamer’s theatrical model. Then again, she knew this when she signed on to direct these movies.
Gerwig has admitted to getting “recurrent nightmares” about this project. In another interview, she said she was “terrified.” Maybe she’s in over her head here. At least she’ll be getting what she wanted. The question remains how long ‘Narnia’ will be playing in theaters before it gets shipped over to streaming.
Gerwig signed on to direct ‘Narnia’ months before “Barbie” was released in theaters, sometime in late 2022. I don’t think she realized at the time how big “Barbie” was going to be. After “Barbie,” she could have gotten carte blanche on whatever passion project she wanted, but ‘Narnia’ has now turned into her follow-up effort.
Following “Air,” this is Affleck’s latest stint behind the camera. He has cast himself in the lead role, alongside Kerry Washington, Steven Yeun, and Gillian Anderson (“The X-Files”).