Barbie director Greta Gerwig provided an update on her emotional state as she prepares to make a film adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia for Netflix.
Director Greta Gerwig and Abby Phillip at an event for Barbie. Photo Credit: UKinUSA, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Speaking with BBC Radio 4’s Today via Yahoo! News, Gerwig said, “I’m slightly in a place of terror because I really do have such reverence for Narnia. I loved Narnia so much as a child; as an adult, [I love] CS Lewis as a thinker and a writer.”
She added, “I’m intimidated by doing this. It’s something that feels a worthy thing to be intimidated by.”
Gerwig would also share, “I also have to say, as a non-British person, I feel a particular sense of wanting to do it correctly. It’s like when Americans do Shakespeare, there’s a slight feeling of reverence as if maybe we should treat it with extra care – he’s not our countryman.”
Liam Neeson as Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), The Walt Disney Company
READ: Rumor: Netflix To Adapt C.S. Lewis’ ‘The Silver Chair’ As First ‘Chronicles Of Narnia’ Project
Netflix announced they would develop both films and TV series based on C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia back in 2018.
In a press release they detailed, “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.”
The company added, “The deal marks the first time that rights to the entire seven books of the Narnia universe have been held by the same company.”
Skandar Keynes as Edmund Pevensie in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), The Walt Disney Company
Netflix’s Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said at the time, “C.S. Lewis’ beloved Chronicles of Narnia stories have resonated with generations of readers around the world. Families have fallen in love with characters like Aslan and the entire world of Narnia, and we’re thrilled to be their home for years to come.”
Douglas Gresham, Lewis’ stepson, also stated, “It is wonderful to know that folks from all over are looking forward to seeing more of Narnia, and that the advances in production and distribution technology have made it possible for us to make Narnian adventures come to life all over the world.”
“Netflix seems to be the very best medium with which to achieve this aim, and I am looking forward to working with them towards this goal,” he added.
Tilda Swinton as White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), The Walt Disney Company
In June 2019, the streaming service announced that Matthew Aldrich, the co-writer of Coco had joined the Netflix team “to oversee the development and creative live-action adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ beloved The Chronicles of Narnia series.”
The company added, “Aldrich will work across both series and film and serve as a creative architect on all projects under the deal.”
The Dawn Treader in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010), 20th Century Fox
Gerwig’s attachment to the project was announced during the promotion of Barbie when The New Yorker’s Alex Barasch reported that she “has a deal with Netflix to write and direct at least two films based on C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia.”
Gerwig confirmed her involvement telling Games Radar, “I haven’t even really started wrapping my arms around it. But I’m properly scared of it, which feels like a good place to start.”
She added, “I think when I’m scared, it’s always a good sign. Maybe when I stop being scared, it’ll be like, ‘Okay. Maybe I shouldn’t do that one.’ No, I’m terrified of it. It’s extraordinary. And so we’ll see, I don’t know.”
“I hope to make all different kinds of movies in the course of the time I get to make movies, which – it’s a long time, but it’s also limited,” she continued. “I want to do big things and small things and everywhere in between, and having another big canvas is exciting and also daunting.”
Liam Neeson as Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), The Walt Disney Company
Netflix Chairman Scott Stuber told Variety about the project in November, “[Gerwig] grew up in a Christian background. The C.S. Lewis books are very much based in Christianity. And so we just started talking about it. And like I said earlier, we don’t have IP, so when we had the opportunity [to license] those books or the [Roald Dahl Co.] we’ve jumped at it, to have stories that people recognize and the ability to tell those stories.”
“So it was just a great opportunity and I’m so thrilled that she’s working on it with us and I’m just thrilled to be in business with her,” he said. “And she’s just an incredible talent.”
William Moseley as Peter Pevensie and Liam Neeson as Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), The Walt Disney Company
When asked for more details about Gerwig’s role in the films and whether she was writing them as well, Stuber said, “Obviously, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is kind of the preeminent one, but there’s such an interesting narrative form [to the Narnia series] if you read all of them. And so that’s what she’s working on now with [producer] Amy Pascal and Mark Gordon and they’re trying to figure out how they can break the whole arc of all of it.”
Stuber would go on to inform Collider at the beginning of November that they planned to take the first film into production next year, “Well, I think people know that we’re aspirationally trying to get Greta Gerwig’s [The Chronicles of] Narnia together and get that movie, which will be next year.”
Ben Barnes as Prince Caspian in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008), The Walt Disney Company
A rumor from What’s on Netflix’s Kasey Moore detailed that Gerwig will likely adapt The Silver Chair as her first movie in the project.
Moore wrote, “Our sources told us in early 2023 that Gerwig’s first adaptation would be of The Silver Chair.”
The Silver Chair was the fourth novel published in The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, but it is the penultimate novel chronologically. The novel follows the characters of Eustace Scrubb and Jill Pole as they are tasked by Aslan to find the missing son of King Caspian X, Prince Rilian.
The two go on a journey across Narnia and run afoul of the Lady of the Green Kirtle who has ambitions to conquer Narnia.
The Silver Chair (2002), HarperCollins Publishers
Gerwig’s attachment to the Narnia books is deeply concerning given her body of work and the Barbie film clearly promoting feminism, which is in direct opposition to Christianity.
Gerwig made it abundantly clear that the Barbie film was trying to push feminism telling ABC News host Sarah Ferguson, “Well, it most certainly is a feminist film.”
Dr. Carrie Gress noted how feminism is incompatible with Christianity in an article in the National Catholic Register, “Feminism’s core beliefs were first articulated by English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). While his wife, Mary Shelley, was writing Frankenstein, Percy Shelley was conjuring up his own creature — the first woman, whom he called Cythna, to be detached from husband or children entirely. Cythna’s only relationship, not accidentally, was with the devil.”
She added, “Shelley himself practiced the dark arts, going so far as to spend a night in a tomb to make contact with the devil. He also offered a new version of the book of Genesis and the fall of man.”
“In Shelley’s reimagined reading of it, based on Milton’s Paradise Lost, Eve is no longer the means of the fall, but through the serpent is given an opportunity for a special kind of knowledge,” Gress explained.
Liam Neeson as Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010), 20th Century Fox
Dale O’Leary also notes, “The feminist analysis is nonsense. Women aren’t going to be better off when there are no families. There is no evidence that any of this will work.”
He asserts, “From the beginning the goals of feminism were clear: destruction of patriarchy; control of reproduction including contraception, abortion, and reproductive technologies; destruction of the fatherheaded family with divorce and illegitimacy made normal; all women in the workforce, no man able to support his family and free 24 hour day care; destruction of all-male institutions; total sexual liberation including sex for children, homosexuality, and bisexuality; destruction of worship of God as father.”
William Moseley as Peter Pevensie and Skandar Keynes as Edmund Pevensie in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008), Walt Disney Pictures
And Christianity is at the heart of The Chronicles of Narnia. C.S. Lewis explained in On Stories and Other Essays on Literature, “Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did harm.”
“The whole subject was associated with lowered voices; almost as it if were something medical. But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could,” he concluded.
Georgie Henley as Lucy Pevensie and Liam Neeson as Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008), Walt Disney Pictures
What do you make of Gerwig’s recent comments about her upcoming Narnia projects at Netflix?
