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The Chronicles of Narnia is officially headed to Netflix. The announcement says that Netflix will develop series and feature-length films! What could this mean?

A couple of thoughts:

1. They're creating a Narnian cinematic universe, where they greatly expand on what Lewis wrote and fill in all sorts of gaps in Narnian history? (I sure hope not.)

2. Maybe the execs looked at all of the books and thought, "MN and HHB are outliers and they would probably work better as films, but LWW/PC/VDT/SC/LB have a much stronger thread of character continuity because of the Pevensies and Eustace, so we can do that as an ongoing episodic series." I think I could go for that, as long as MN and HHB don't feel like they're pressed for time compared to the rest of the stories.

This whole thing raises so many questions that I'm not completely sure what I think, though I kind of have a bad feeling about it.

Some of the wording in the press release like "opportunity to develop classic stories from across the Narnia universe" along with the fact that they are doing both films and shows. That leads me to think they are planing on creating some kind of "Narnia cinematic universe" with spinoff series and standalone stories based on known characters and such. At the moment I don't think I can really articulate how much I loathe that idea. The last thing I would ever want to see is a Narnia story not written by C. S. Lewis.

Interesting. I'm not sure how I feel about an expanded universe either but I suppose eventually its bound to happen. I mean it will leave copyright (it already has in Australia) in 15 years and will be public domain pretty much everywhere. So I suppose we should get used to other authors using it.

I personally do NOT think they'll be doing any kind of expansion outside of the existing books. This is the C.S. Lewis Estate we're talking about.

Now, my initial reaction, is that it was more of a typo and should have said "a series of film releases." At least, that's how I interpreted it. I could be very wrong.

My other thought after digesting the news for a bit, it may be similar to how several TV series kick off, where they do a made-for-tv, movie-length, pilot episode, followed by a TV series afterwards.
But to mix and match the stories as a movie, followed by a series, followed by a movie, followed by a series, just seems odd. Having said that, just because it hasn't been done before, doesn't mean it won't work. I think we all agree that Dawn Treader would REALLY benefit from a tv series style of production.

fantasia_kitty wrote:Now, my initial reaction, is that it was more of a typo and should have said "a series of film releases." At least, that's how I interpreted it. I could be very wrong.

In the press release Mark Gordon specificity mentioned that Netflix has the capacity to "translate the Narnia universe into both stellar feature-length and episodic programming." So regardless of what that means, it defiantly wasn't a typo.

Ok, I guess the Silver Chair movie is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ at this point. They might as well just do a full reboot now.

My initial reaction is I'm all for a new Narnia series like the BBC version, but with modern production values (and hopefully all the books made this time). I don't think C.S. Lewis Estate would be on board if there was a huge risk of mismanagement of the series. I don't know what else to think about it until more details come out though.

My initial guess was that they wanted to do a series with episodes the length of feature films.

it may be similar to how several TV series kick off, where they do a made-for-tv, movie-length, pilot episode, followed by a TV series afterwards.

That makes sense.

I am horrified by every bit of this news. As for making it both as TV and as film, my reaction is "how?"
I mean, it's all gonna end up on netflix, so why make it both? and how are they going to pull this off? also, given the fact that they announced SC being put on screen back in 2013 and then nothing's happened since, how do we know that this is real news?

My understanding of this is that Netflix does NOT have any firm production plans yet. They don't know if they want to make movies or a TV show or a mini-series or whatever. They've only just acquired the rights. So, in the announcement they listed both options, because they don't know yet and they don't want to box themselves into one option.

I HIGHLY doubt it will be both movies AND a show or an "expanded universe". There's plenty of Narnia material to last Netflix for years depending on how they produce it. They just have to decide how they want to do it first.

Gymfan15 wrote:My understanding of this is that Netflix does NOT have any firm production plans yet. They don't know if they want to make movies or a TV show or a mini-series or whatever. They've only just acquired the rights. So, in the announcement they listed both options, because they don't know yet and they don't want to box themselves into one option.

The same thought crossed my mind, especially since Mark Gordon said that eOne/Netflix/The C.S. Lewis Company "have the capacity to translate the Narnia universe into both stellar feature-length and episodic programming." That sounds more like we're talking about possibilities.

However, if they've just acquired the rights and are still figuring out what they want to do... why not just announce that Netflix has the rights to Narnia and has future projects planned and leave it at that? Why preface the announcement with statements like these instead?

"Netflix will develop new series and film projects based on C.S. Lewis’ beloved The Chronicles of Narnia series."

"Under the terms of a multi-year deal between Netflix and The C.S. Lewis Company, Netflix will develop classic stories from across the Narnia universe into series and films for its members worldwide."

Maybe I just don't read enough press releases of this sort, but it seems weird to me that they would make statements like that when "Netflix has the rights!" would suffice for the time being until they get their ducks in a row and can share their finalized plans.

Also, the announcement detailed what capacity people like Douglas Gresham and Mark Gordon would serve with both films and series projects (executive producer vs. producer), so it sounds like they've already got contractual stuff hammered out.

This makes me think back to Joe Johnston's "trilogy" comment. Perhaps there is more carrying over with eOne than we realize?

I think it's as simple as Netflix is DEFINITELY going to develop the Narnia books into content, but they don't actually have the details worked out yet. Things like format, directors, etc. They've got executive producers to figure that stuff out, but they want to get the word out there that they ARE working on it. Remember, Netflix is actively working on trying to keep and maintain their market share of customers with Disney pulling all their content off the platform and creating their own rival service in the very near future. Netflix is put as much positive information out there as they can, because they need their shareholders to stay confident in their future success.

Creating content based on Narnia is a DUH for Netflix. They can be moving forward with it without actually having it all figured out yet. That's the beauty of Netflix vs a step-by-step movie production from a traditional studio.

ETA:

Maybe I just don't read enough press releases of this sort, but it seems weird to me that they would make statements like that when "Netflix has the rights!" would suffice for the time being until they get their ducks in a row and can share their finalized plans.

Not weird to me at all. Word of mouth and public opinion matter a lot, especially when it comes to something like Netflix and the fact that they are possibly not just acquiring the Narnia rights but also buying eOne completely (that was rumored elsewhere). It's a business thing. The more positive feedback and buzz that can be generated, the easier it's going to be for Netflix to approve funding, hire people, etc.

Gymfan15 wrote:My understanding of this is that Netflix does NOT have any firm production plans yet. They don't know if they want to make movies or a TV show or a mini-series or whatever.

I really hope you're right Gymfan. However I'm extremely skeptical about that being the case. If they really hadn't decided what thier going to do with Narnia, I would think they'd just not say anything at the moment.

Plus, I was just reading Deadline's article on the news. And they claim that Netflix is "looking to build a Narnia cinematic universe that encompasses film and TV in the vein of Star Trek and Marvel, whose franchises cross over between mediums." It also says that Mark Gordon apparently came up with the idea to create a "a film-TV Narnia universe" and got the C.S. Lewis Estate to go along with it. So unless Deadline is just making all this up. It does sound like Netflix is indeed planing to make some kind of Narnia expanded universe with spinoffs and the like.

As a fan of the books the thought of that happening makes me sick to my stomach.

Has anyone involved with the production (of...whatever this going to be ) mentioned a "shared cinematic universe?" I keep hearing that phrase but it's from paraphrasers. I'm wondering if people are just assuming that they want to do that because other studios have done so and not because the producers have actually told them that. But I could have missed something in one of the press releases.

I'm honestly pretty thrilled about this news. It's been so long since any kind of news, and I generally tend to enjoy Netflix's content. I think the format of Netflix also makes sense, since it's possible for the books to be made into a series of sorts rather than films (which, as we know, can be rather constraining plot-wise). Though, as with all adaptations, this could go wrong, I'm cautiously optimistic and I really look forward to seeing where this goes!

Gymfan15 wrote: I HIGHLY doubt it will be both movies AND a show or an "expanded universe". There's plenty of Narnia material to last Netflix for years depending on how they produce it. They just have to decide how they want to do it first.

The press release itself differentiated producer roles for Mark Gordon, Douglas Gresham, and Vincent Seiber based on films or series. Gordon even mentioned getting started on multiple productions.

Plus, the Deadline article put a specific emphasis on how eOne "felt there was a bigger opportunity building a film-TV Narnia universe" than a theatrical release. Why would Gresham sign-off on this if it meant creating new material? How little faith do you have in the man?

Col Klink wrote:Has anyone involved with the production (of...whatever this going to be ) mentioned a "shared cinematic universe?" I keep hearing that phrase but it's from paraphrasers. I'm wondering if people are just assuming that they want to do that because other studios have done so and not because the producers have actually told them that. But I could have missed something in one of the press releases.

Nope. I can see why building a Narnia universe over different mediums could lead to observers implying that. But isn't that what the books are, anyway? 7 stand-alone stories taking place in one shared universe? I like that emphasis being placed on Narnia's world/universe rather than specific characters. That's how you sell a series.