I think having The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe first might draw more moviegoers to theaters since they are more likely to be familiar with the wardrobe than the story of Charn or even the creation of Narnia.   Narnia movies would probably do better at the box office if something familiar like the wardrobe would start the first movie.  When people think of Narnia they will often want the wardrobe to be first thing they encounter. The Magician’s Nephew would probably draw more viewers as a later production. The viewers by that time would be more familiar with the series of books and its author C. S. Lewis.

Posted by: @narnian78

I think having The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe first might draw more moviegoers to theaters since they are more likely to be familiar with the wardrobe than the story of Charn or even the creation of Narnia.   Narnia movies would probably do better at the box office if something familiar like the wardrobe would start the first movie.  When people think of Narnia they will often want the wardrobe to be first thing they encounter. The Magician’s Nephew would probably draw more viewers as a later production. The viewers by that time would be more familiar with the series of books.

I've heard it argued both ways (and I remember there was a Talking Beasts podcast that made this point):

• Audiences will be more drawn to something familiar, therefore the first movie should be LWW.
• Audiences will be more drawn to something new, therefore the first movie should be MN.

And there is really no absolute right or wrong answer there, since the side one takes will boil down to one's own assumptions and preferences. But as it's now looking at least 90% likely that Greta Gerwig is going to start with The Magician's Nephew, it seems Netflix is siding with the idea that going with something new and exciting will draw the most attention, and whether we established Narnia fans agree or not, that's almost certainly what we're going to get.

I've come to the point where I don't really mind overall which of those two stories Netflix uses for their first movie, so long as it actually gets done! (Don't forget, there were a few years there where we heard nothing about "Netflix's Narnia" but the vaguest of vague rumours, very occasionally, and it was easy to assume — I had just about concluded — that they had in fact quietly dropped the project in the too-hard basket and given up entirely.)

But if it really is MN, I'm not surprised and I think that's a good choice, simply because there are already three screen adaptations of LWW available, one of which (Walden) is still very popular and widely acclaimed and fixed in the heads of a lot of fans already as "their" idea of Narnia. If Netflix starts with LWW, they will be directly competing with that existing film, and I can imagine it would be very hard to make their new version "different" enough to make it feel distinctive and original while still sticking with the familiar story reasonably well.

Whereas if they start with MN, that's a chance to create (literally to create!!! ) a Narnia that is completely new and fresh, as they'll be dealing with characters and scenes and adventures that haven't been done on screen at all before, while still playing into many viewers' existing knowledge of LWW with all the "aha" moments. So I would say, overall, I think they've made the best decision under the circumstances — though whether what results from it will satisfy us die-hard fans of the original books is, of course, another matter entirely.

Posted by: @narnian78

I think having The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe first might draw more moviegoers to theaters since they are more likely to be familiar with the wardrobe than the story of Charn or even the creation of Narnia.   Narnia movies would probably do better at the box office if something familiar like the wardrobe would start the first movie.  When people think of Narnia they will often want the wardrobe to be first thing they encounter. The Magician’s Nephew would probably draw more viewers as a later production. The viewers by that time would be more familiar with the series of books and its author C. S. Lewis.

For what it's worth, I think the most important part and key to the success of the film with people who are not familiar with the books (assuming the first film will be MN as it appears likely it will be).  I don't think they necessarily need images of the wardrobe or familiarity with that to draw them in - I think probably good slogans would be useful - and also featuring the lamppost in the promotional any trailers would be helpful too - but I think showing the wardrobe too early could spoil some of the intrigue for a new generation introduced to Narnia by film.  Some ideas, "You know of Narnia - now let's go back to where it began", or "Before the Pevensies... before the Wardrobe... in the stillness and darkness before time dawned... there was singing... there was the creation of a land of wonder, a land of youth... the creation of Narnia!" 

I just think it's important not to treat the movie viewing audiences as too naïve and needing big links to the famous Narnia stories - as long as done and promoted well, I think it could spark a lot of interest from many who haven't read the books before.  

@icarus: So I guess then that's my question: does logic dictate that a Greta/Walden MN be any different from a Greta/Netflix MN, and if not, does it still matter to the audience(or her financial backers)one way or the other?

As far as I know, logic definitely would suggest that a Greta/Walden MN would have to be different from a Greta/Netflix MN, when so much of a film is copyrighted, including designs, music, version of character, etc. Walden would retain copyright of the designs etc, landscape choices, photography, music of course, and even the cast, in any of the productions that it undertook, so what was used for LWW, PC and VDT could be reused for anything else Narnian that Greta Gerwig did with Walden's blessing.

But that would not be necessarily true for a Greta/Netflix MN, when nobody has done anything previously to make a version of MN, yet, in either film or as a TV serial. It would be a fresh new approach, and Greta would have to come up with something different for copyright reasons alone, unless Netflix already had negotiated an arrangement with Walden to allow Greta to use their material.

I could be wrong, of course, by now, more than a decade after my retirement in 2013. After all, the BBC is still a British publisher, whilst Walden/Disney was/is American, and Netflix is something else, again. There is also Fox Studios, and News Corp, whose owner, Rupert Murdoch, was born an Australian, whatever he is now. Previously, I always had to be aware of the existence of copyright, usually held by the author. But in which country and who owned Intellectual property of not only books, but translations, of audio productions, films, tv series etc.? Copyright not only affects what can be published legally, when, and where. Big publishers, Penguin or Bloomsbury/Scholastic Press, for instance, would have on their staff a legal expert in publishing law to vet a book to see that the text didn't breach any laws, such as against plagiarism or piracy. The same would apply to Warner Brothers or Disney as film producers, not to mention Paramount, MGM or Columbia.  

@waggawerewolf27 I assume your references to Walden in the present tense are just hypothetical? - given that they lost the right to renew their contract due to serious changes in the second film and even worse in the third one. The Estate would never let them near the books again. 

Posted by: @coracle

@waggawerewolf27 I assume your references to Walden in the present tense are just hypothetical?

It was in response to the hypothetical question I raised in my post.

Posted by: @waggawerewolf27

@icarus: So I guess then that's my question: does logic dictate that a Greta/Walden MN be any different from a Greta/Netflix MN, and if not, does it still matter to the audience(or her financial backers)one way or the other?

As far as I know, logic definitely would suggest that a Greta/Walden MN would have to be different from a Greta/Netflix MN, when so much of a film is copyrighted, including designs, music, version of character, etc. Walden would retain copyright of the designs etc, landscape choices, photography, music of course, and even the cast, in any of the productions that it undertook, so what was used for LWW, PC and VDT could be reused for anything else Narnian that Greta Gerwig did with Walden's blessing.

Not sure if you went in a different direction with the hypothetical than I was expecting, but in my mind copyright would not be an issue for either version of MN in the hypothetical scenario.

Other than the Wardrobe (which an MN movie is not obligated to show), there are no other common characters, settings, locations, etc that absolutely require them to be identical. Even the lampost isnt fully formed and doesnt need to be identical in design. The Walden movies themselves chopped and changed the cast around (such as Eddie Izzard to Simon Pegg) and made significant cosmetic changes between films (Caspian's accent) which didn't affect the canonicity of the series. I could probably also cite plenty of examples from other films (Harry Potter, etc.) where minor changes in design elements didn't affect the continuity of the series.

Ultimately though, I think the conclusion i was looking for here was that whilst it doesn't actually matter which studio GG is producing a movie for, the *perception* of whether GG's MN movie is or is not in one continuity or another actually does still matter, for the reason that movies don't exist in a vacuum, and can't be shorn from their cultural context.

Therefore even if GG released the exact same movie in two alternate timelines - one branded as a prequel to the Walden movies, and one branded as a completely new reboot, the audience perception of the stories would still be different... or at least I think so.

@icarus: Not sure if you went in a different direction with the hypothetical than I was expecting, but in my mind copyright would not be an issue for either version of MN in the hypothetical scenario....Other than the Wardrobe(which an MN movie is not obligated to show), there are no other common characters, settings, locations, etc that absolutely require them to be identical. Even the lampost isnt fully formed and doesnt need to be identical in design.

That is okay, as far as I remember, when I didn't expect you to know that I was actually wearing my retired librarian's hat when I was answering your hypothetical question. For librarians, especially if they are into cataloguing & classification, or working for an academic library, copyright is usually a big deal, for some of the reasons I already mentioned. Copyright also includes how much of a work can be photocopied on library premises for study purposes, or the big fees charged by media organisations for teaching videos produced for students to watch. And since I was not only trained but also involved in such work for decades, I couldn't resist commenting on such lines. 

And yes, it was precisely the Wardrobe or the Lamp Post that I was thinking about, not only Aslan & the White Witch, herself, though as you say, neither the Wardrobe nor even the Lamp post is mandatory in MN, itself. But if GG does go on to do LWW as a follow-on, that would be a different matter. 

@coracle: @waggawerewolf27I assume your references to Walden in the present tense are just hypothetical? - given that they lost the right to renew their contract due to serious changes in the second film and even worse in the third one. The Estate would never let them near the books again. 

  Sorry, didn't know about what you said, when for the past decade, being retired, I've had other more pressing things on my mind, than Walden's woes. What you said in your post, also confirms what I have been saying: that GG's efforts would definitely have to be much different from anything Walden tried to do with the three movies it did, hypothetical or not, when the last thing GG needs to do is to make the same mistakes that Walden did in its productions.