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Going to go ahead and open this thread because I'm bored and that rarely happens . I know the news posters are working on a story that should hopefully go up in the next couple days. In the meantime, I'll go ahead and post this here.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists ... te-1156933

Racheline Benveniste, 35
Manager, original features, Netflix

Benveniste likes to say her big break came when trying to persuade Mike Medavoy to hire her as an assistant even though she "had no idea what I was doing." Still, she hoped her English accent would get her through. "And it kind of did," she jokes. That gig led to others, including her lengthy stint at Warner Bros. before settling at Netflix in 2016. At the streaming giant, Benveniste has helped shape the movie slate with a collection of family films and franchises, including the upcoming holiday movie The Christmas Chronicles, starring Kurt Russell. Among her biggest endeavors, however, will be overseeing the new Chronicles of Narnia franchise. In October, Netflix picked up the rights to C.S. Lewis' classic book series with plans for a cinematic universe spanning TV and film. The London native, whose mother is American and father Egyptian, has also worked tirelessly to bring the upcoming rom-com Always Be My Maybe, starring Ali Wong and Randall Park, to the streamer.

And Rose-Tree found this on Racheline's Linked In profile....

Projects in development include a live action CARMEN SANDIEGO starring Gina Rodriguez, a live action adaption of C.S Lewis' THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, and YA thriller TELL ME EVERYTHING , being adapted by Leslye Headland for herself to direct.

So there you go. I guess we have the official Netflix rep on board? And we now know it's going to be live action. Good to hear things are moving along.

Cool to be getting even a little bit of news. Can't wait for the news story.

Like I said in the live action vs animation topic, I think live action is generally preferable. (Maybe if there were more live action versions of the books which I really liked, I'd be interested in animated adaptations. But since I expect only one cinematic adaptation of each book in my lifetime, I'd rather they be live action except for the special effects.)

I wonder if the Narnia series really will be the biggest project or if they just said that because it sounded more interesting that way.

Yay! Now there's a thread for the bits and pieces I run across when I'm dissolving into a fit of googles.

Aside from the live action aspect, this is also interesting to me because it seems like they're already laying out the groundwork for movies. Racheline Benveniste only has experience working with feature films; she doesn't have any links to television. So this doesn't appear to be a situation where they're first and foremost making a television show, with an eye to eventually add films to the franchise. (Like The Walking Dead and their recently announced movie trilogy, for instance.) So I'm guessing we can expect a movie of some kind in the relatively near future. (Perhaps a MN movie, followed by a television series about the Pevensie adventures?)

Also, the LinkedIn page doesn't say an adaptation of a particular book, it says The Chronicles of Narnia... yeah, not going to read too much into that at this point, but it does make one wonder if they're thinking a movie franchise of the seven books, with spin-off television shows.

Her LinkedIn says that she is currently "building out" the Narnia "universe," but what that actually means is left unclear. The word "spinoffs" comes readily to mind, though.

I'm not making assumptions either way until I hear official news.

Just some food for thought though, how would YOU word it if you were building out Narnia from Magician's Nephew to Last Battle? From Charn to Archenland to Calorman (sp?) to the VDT Islands?

Well, "elaborating," "detailing," or "mapping out" might be good words to choose. Filling in the chinks or gaps that Lewis' concise style left in the world that he created, and such.

For what it's worth, Douglas Gresham spoke a little about Netflix today at his master class at the Logos Theater. He didn't say anything about feature-length movies but spoke positively about the multi-episode series because "you can put the whole book in." Also, he mentioned extrapolating action like the battle of Charn. He said they were still in the negotiation stage with Netflix.

Good to hear SOME news at least! Thanks!
I'm actually kind of glad to hear that they might show the battle of Charn. It's a very interesting scene that I think would make a tremendous opening for MN. Maybe they could have a blinding flash when Jadis speaks the Deplorable Word, right before the scene cuts to Victorian England!
Or so I imagined it.

Glad there was some news to share! I have to say I automatically cringe a little when I hear people talking about adding things that aren't in the books. But something like Charn is way different than what's been done to other books [cough-Hobbit-cough]. And it could be cool.

hogglestock wrote:For what it's worth, Douglas Gresham spoke a little about Netflix today at his master class at the Logos Theater. He didn't say anything about feature-length movies but spoke positively about the multi-episode series because "you can put the whole book in." Also, he mentioned extrapolating action like the battle of Charn. He said they were still in the negotiation stage with Netflix.

The negotiation part doesn't surprise me as they'll have a lot of prep work (overall plan for series, budget, order, etc) before going into production for any adaptation. I do find it interesting that he specifically mentioned Charn. Is Netflix going to launch its Narnia universe with MN?

Thanks for the little tidbit of information!

Is Netflix going to launch its Narnia universe with MN?

He threw out that idea as an example of things that could be fleshed out from the books--but that is the example he gave, so who knows?

I'm too lazy to look right now, but SOMEONE has mentioned a whole spinoff series involving Charn. So the idea of the destruction of Charn being fleshed out for the series makes perfect sense. It's mentioned in the book, lets see it on screen.
I'm more intrigued by the implications (or interpretation) that they seem to be leaning towards a SERIES rather than movies. Within the context of Netflix, I think that will work well. Just wondering how they'll split them up? With the mention of Charn as something definitely being discussed, I do suspect both MN and LWW will be in season one. Maybe all of season one? Maybe only part of season one?

Very interesting.... Thanks for sharing hogglestock!