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.