The Letter for the King, Netflix's new YA medieval series
Posted: Feb 27, 2020 11:41 am
Yesterday I saw the trailer for Netflix's upcoming YA series The Letter for the King, and I definitely got some Walden-era Narnia vibes, especially if they had gotten around to adapting The Horse and His Boy. (Given that filming took place in Prague and New Zealand, this probably shouldn't be a surprise.)
The project was announced in July of 2018, with casting announced in December of that year. The original series is based off the classic Dutch novel De brief voor de koning. The series will be released on March 20th and will span six episodes.
A couple thoughts crossed my mind as a result of seeing the trailer:
1. I think the quality of the series looks good. I don't know what the budget was for it, but given that The Letter for the King has little name recognition outside of the Netherlands (at least, I had never heard of it before), I think it's safe to expect that Narnia will be substantially better.
2. Perhaps I'm overly optimistic, but I would be surprised if Netflix tried to turn Narnia into "Game of Thrones for kids" after seeing this. They will want Narnia to seem like something different than this property; if they play up the battles and grit and darkness, you'll just being seeing a lot of the same on their platform and they need variety to attract subscribers. So I continue to be cautiously hopeful that the whimsy and wonder will be central in their adaptation.
Any thoughts? How would you feel if this was a trailer for a Narnia adaptation, in terms of vibe/aesthetics?
The project was announced in July of 2018, with casting announced in December of that year. The original series is based off the classic Dutch novel De brief voor de koning. The series will be released on March 20th and will span six episodes.
A couple thoughts crossed my mind as a result of seeing the trailer:
1. I think the quality of the series looks good. I don't know what the budget was for it, but given that The Letter for the King has little name recognition outside of the Netherlands (at least, I had never heard of it before), I think it's safe to expect that Narnia will be substantially better.
2. Perhaps I'm overly optimistic, but I would be surprised if Netflix tried to turn Narnia into "Game of Thrones for kids" after seeing this. They will want Narnia to seem like something different than this property; if they play up the battles and grit and darkness, you'll just being seeing a lot of the same on their platform and they need variety to attract subscribers. So I continue to be cautiously hopeful that the whimsy and wonder will be central in their adaptation.
Any thoughts? How would you feel if this was a trailer for a Narnia adaptation, in terms of vibe/aesthetics?