Greta Gerwig’s Narnia Movie Could Be Changing A Crucial Part Of The Story
The Lion, the Witch, and the Y2K Wardrobe?
When Netflix announced its next big project, a big-screen adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia books, fans were optimistic for a number of reasons. Barbie’s Greta Gerwig was attached to write and direct at least the first two movies, and unlike the previous Disney adaptations of the 2000s, this film series would start with The Magician’s Nephew, the Narnia origin story set decades before The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
But apparently, these Netflix movies will make a fundamental change to the world of Narnia as a whole. And while this change updates the story for a new audience, it causes a number of timeline questions for this new adaptation.
Resurfaced set photos for Netflix’s upcoming Chronicles of Narnia film reveal a setting that isn’t around the turn of the century, when The Magician’s Nephew book was set, but instead, something more akin to 1955, the year The Magician’s Nephew was published. This isn’t confirmed, as we don’t have any concrete details about the movie just yet, but the costuming is pretty distinctly mid-century.
The Magician’s Nephew follows Digory Kirke, who would be an elderly man during the events of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
This small change may not affect the story of The Magician’s Nephew that much, but it has drastic consequences for the future of the franchise. C.S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew takes place in 1900, approximately 40 years before the events of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. The latter is crucially a wartime story — that’s why the Pevensies are evacuated to the house in the country in the first place. But if the prequel story itself is set after WWII, then the Pevensies wouldn’t enter the picture until the 1990s at the earliest.
Could Greta Gerwig’s take on the Narnia franchise be more turn of the millennium than turn of the century? It would certainly update the world to be more applicable to audiences today, but it would be a gigantic change for the movie itself.
This wouldn’t be unprecedented for Gerwig. In her 2019 Little Women adaptation, she revised the ending from Louisa May Alcott’s original book. But this is a little more than just a plot twist — this is like if the Marches were 1920s flapper girls all of a sudden.
Could the Pevensies be millennials in the Netflix version?
Now granted, the setting of the outside world doesn’t really affect the world of Narnia that much, and the majority of the story is set within that realm. But the Pevensies — the main characters of the saga as a whole — are products of their time, and there’s no telling how this could affect the beloved details of the story. Will the wardrobe contain Members Only jackets instead of fur coats? Will Edmund desire Jell-O Pudding Pops instead of Turkish Delight?
Perhaps this story will find a way to show a midcentury origin story and a wartime main story, since time works differently in Narnia. But it’s looking like this new adaptation will be taking some big swings — a risky move at the start of what could be a decade-long project.
