UPDATE: Looks like Gerwig is shooting this one in August. Production is said to take a whopping 7 months to complete. It’s supposed to wrap up in March 2025. So, we’re likely looking at a late 2025 or early 2026 release.
EARLIER (03.14.24): I can’t not be interested in Greta Gerwig’s upcoming ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ adaptation. On paper, it sounds ridiculous, and it doesn’t help that Netflix has signed her up to direct two of these films, but I’m absolutely intrigued by how Gerwig is going to try to pull this off.
Gerwig signed on to direct ‘Narnia’ many months before “Barbie” was released to the public — sometime in late 2022. I don’t think she realized at the time how big “Barbie” would get. She now has a deal with Netflix to write and direct “at least two films” based on C. S. Lewis’ fantasy stories.
Gerwig has admitted to getting “recurrent nightmares” about the project. In another interview, she said she was “terrified.” She did mention that part of the lure for this project was that she grew up with these stories and that the “female perspective” in them has some major potential.
If you were Gerwig, hot off the heels of the most popular film of the year, wouldn’t you also be having nightmares about adapting and directing two Narnia films?
Now, what’s the status of this project? When is it going to be shooting? Gerwig recently told Deadline that the film should be going into production “by the end of this year or early next year”, and that it’s expected to be a two-picture deal which could amount to four-plus years in this world for her.
As much as I wasn’t a fan of “Barbie,” Gerwig is talented filmmaker, and, as much as I have a reservations about her doing these children’s adaptations, there’s no doubt in my mind that she’ll bring something different to these stories. People doubted she could bring a fresh spin to “Barbie,” but she clearly did something original with the I.P. that she was given.
However, another film that Gerwig has written, but not directed, will be coming to theaters before ‘Narnia,’ and that’s Disney’s upcoming “Snow White” live-action movie. That’s the same one that late David Hand’s son, also named David, called a “disgrace,” and that Walt Disney and his dad would be “turning in their graves” if they were alive to see it.
Freeman is far from retired. Case in point, all the straight-to-VOD movies he’s been making these past 10 years. Scrolling through his filmography, the last true “Hollywood” year Freeman had was in 2016.