Well, I think it's safe to say that LWW, PC, VDT, SC, and LB will be in order because of the actors aging up as the characters in the books do. So that leaves MN and HHB as wildcards that can fit in.... .????? 

I'm not sure that I've personally seen any hard evidence that MN is being adapted as one of the first releases outside of Gerwig's reference to the Wood Between the Worlds, which means she's at least studying that scene. I think a large number of us are hoping that one will be first, which I wouldn't mind. But I personally would like to see MN fit in between LWW and PC to keep the Jadis/White Witch stories together, and give the Pevensies a bit of time to age between LWW and PC. 

But HHB is tough. On one hand, you have to decide which you prefer: for the story to fall into the correct place chronologically with different non-child actors? Or do you want to wait so the Pevensie actors can get older (about LB age?), keep their roles, and then have it as a bonus story later on? I prefer the latter, though out of all the books, I personally think this one is the best made-for-cinema story, and I can't WAIT to see it on screen. 

So I guess this is my preference based on simplicity for actors' ages. 

LWW, MN, PC, VDT, SC, HHB, and LB

Posted by: @fantasia

HHB is tough. On one hand, you have to decide which you prefer: for the story to fall into the correct place chronologically with different non-child actors? Or do you want to wait so the Pevensie actors can get older (about LB age?), keep their roles, and then have it as a bonus story later on?

There will be actors who play the characters as adults at the end of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I honestly wouldn't mind seeing them again in The Horse and his Boy unless they're really bad for some reason. Of course, it'll be weird that they look older than they did at the end of LWW which is supposed to happen after HHB but if they do use the original actors, we'll all notice how they don't look like the actors at the end of LWW. Pick your poison, I guess.

I actually kind of like @fantasia's idea of doing LWW, MN, PC, VDT, SC, HHB, and LB. I figured that if they went in publication order, and LWW was followed by PC, those who have grown up watching the BBC TV series and even those who are fans of the Walden film franchise, would probably be like, "Oh, these again?" However, if they do LWW and first and that's followed by MN, a prequel, that could be something fresh. PC is a sequel to LWW, given the subtitle "The Return to Narnia", but having a prequel in between would actually be kind of nice.

1. The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe- a well known story and while the Walden film version has been very popular and it would be certainly tricky to reboot, well, maybe a fresh start would be nice. There was a 17 year gap between the BBC TV series version and the Walden film version, so what if there was say a 20 year gap between the Walden film version and the Netflix film or series version?
2. The Magician's Nephew- Surprise! We get an origin story following. It could even start where The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe left off, where the Pevensies had come out of the wardrobe and they told the Professor they had been to Narnia. Then he tells them of how he and Polly went to Narnia. Then audiences could be like, "So that's where the wardrobe came from!"
3. Prince Caspian- It's the return to Narnia with the Pevensies. So they could continue on with them on here.
4. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader- Here, we are introduced to a new character, the Pevensie's cousin Eustace, who starts out as a bully then becomes a better person.
5. The Silver Chair- Here, Eustace goes to Narnia with another new character, Jill. She's never been before, so it's nice to have a new character introduced here as well.
6. The Horse And His Boy- Here, perhaps in The Silver Chair, have the blind poet narrate the story.
7. The Last Battle- This will certainly wrap up the franchise. There wouldn't even have to be any connection between The Horse And His Boy and The Last Battle, even though both stories feature Calormenes. Oh, it could probably make some references to The Horse And His Boy, given that the book does give some references to the other six books, like where Tirian reflects on what happened in Narnia's past and the reunion of the characters from the past books. So I wouldn't be all surprise if The Last Battle movie does make some references to the six other stories.

So it seems that the possibilities are endless.

Posted by: @rilianix

 

I just feel the time between Eustace's adventures doesn't hold as much weight as it does for the Pevensies, and given that Jill Pole is pretty much the protagonist of SC, the writers could play around a lot with Eustace. For example, it might be more interesting for Eustace if he's been stuck at Experiment House, away from Narnia, for a lot longer.

Like I said above, out of everyone, I think you can play around with the timing of Eustace's visit o Narnia in SC the most.

Well I think the door is still wide open when it comes to the order of the new franchise! It made sense for both the BBC TV series and the Walden film franchise to start with LWW, even though non of them could make it all the way through with the BBC TV series stopping after SC and the Walden film franchise stopping after VDT.

Now the new franchise could still start with LWW. However, if it was followed by MN instead of PC, this could give us a familiar story followed by a prequel.

But anything could happen. I'm sure we'll some announcement before too long.

Wow, this thread is giving me massive flashbacks to the olden days of the Walden Media films. I remember discussing this exact same topic then too.  

Posted by: @col-klink

There will be actors who play the characters as adults at the end of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

You're absolutely right. But in my own mind, the characters at the end of LWW are full-grown adults (late 20s, early 30s). Whereas in HHB, I think of them as late teens, early 20s. It could work, sure, but I think I'd prefer the "child" actors grown up rather than use the adult actors at the end of the series. But it's not something I have a super strong opinion on. 

Posted by: @rilianix

Like I said above, out of everyone, I think you can play around with the timing of Eustace's visit o Narnia in SC the most.

Out of total curiosity, why do you think it's better to have a break between VDT and SC as opposed to SC and LB? 

Posted by: @jasmine_tarkheena

Well I think the door is still wide open when it comes to the order of the new franchise!

I am very curious to see the direction Netflix takes with Narnia. They've kept their cards close to their chest, that's for sure. If nothing else, it gives us lots of fodder with which to discuss. I've missed this.  

Posted by: @fantasia

You're absolutely right. But in my own mind, the characters at the end of LWW are full-grown adults (late 20s, early 30s). Whereas in HHB, I think of them as late teens, early 20s. It could work, sure, but I think I'd prefer the "child" actors grown up rather than use the adult actors at the end of the series. But it's not something I have a super strong opinion on. 

According to Lewis's later timeline, the action of HHB takes place only one year before the four Pevensies leave Narnia at the end of LWW, so it would make sense to use the same adult actors in both cases. However, the timeline — as we've all discussed here a lot — is controversial and probably only semi-canonical at best, since it contradicts some details of the books. But then, the books themselves contradict each other at points, including this one!! The ending of LWW has the four Kings and Queens so "Narnianised" that they've forgotten almost everything about their life in our world, or even that they came from another world; when they see the lamppost, they have no idea what it is, let alone that their original world lies beyond it. And yet at the end of HHB, Lewis has Queen Lucy telling "the Tale of the Wardrobe" and how they all came to Narnia, making clear she's told it many times before...   There is simply no way of reconciling this, except to remark that Lewis seems to have had almost as great a lapse of memory as his characters did at the end of the first book he wrote!

Posted by: @fantasia

 

Out of total curiosity, why do you think it's better to have a break between VDT and SC as opposed to SC and LB?

@courtenay

CS Lewis obviously didn't plan out the series in advanced. Now maybe if he had, the timeline would not have been as debatable and perhaps there would have been some overarching narrative. But that's kind of besides the point.

Well, whichever order they decide to do, I would be fine with either publication or chronological or even just a random order as long as they study what CS Lewis wrote and do their homework (read the books carefully).

Posted by: @rilianix

Well not only do I think it makes us feel like we’ve had a longer break from the Pevensies so their return feels more impactful, I also think SC and TLB just work in my eyes as the two final stories. With the death of Caspian before leading into the climax where all our favourite characters return, I feel like throwing HHB between them, would somewhat disturb what I think is a perfect crescendo of an ending.

I do think that The Silver Chair and The Last Battle work really well as the final two instalments in the series. When I originally read the books as a child, I started off with LWW — actually, my mum read that one to me, as I was still a bit too young to read it on my own — and am glad that was my first introduction to the series, as it really does work best as the opener to the series, as far as the original books are concerned. (I wasn't even aware there were any sequels to it at that time! The BBC TV series hadn't yet been made and there was no such thing as the internet yet — this was the mid-1980s.) But a few years later, we got hold of the entire series of books and I read the rest of them in chronological order, starting with MN, skipping LWW, going on with HHB, then PC and all the rest. So I did read SC and LB consecutively, and I must say those two are very effective back to back. There are a couple of reasons I can think of:

1) Character continuity. Jill and Eustace are the two central characters from our world in both those stories. They are several years older in The Last Battle (7 years, according to the possibly questionable timeline by Lewis), but they are very recognisably the same two people and there are plenty of references to their previous adventure — for example, Jill knowing how to navigate by the Narnian stars because of all the time they spent in the wild lands of the North.

2) Foreshadowing of Aslan's country — and this, in fact, is a continuity between VDT, SC and LB, if you read them as the last three in the series (which I did). There's actually a really good build-up across the endings of those three books, which is interrupted if you insert HHB and MN between SC and LB (in accordance with the publication order):

- In VDT, we reach the very edge of Aslan's country, with a glimpse of a range of mountains "beyond the sun", but only Reepicheep goes on to enter it (and we're not told, at that stage, that he got there for sure). Eustace and Lucy and Edmund then meet Aslan, who reveals, for the first time openly in the series, that there is a way into his country from our world too (and from all other worlds), and that he himself is in our world under another name.

- In SC, at the beginning, Eustace and Jill find themselves on one of those mountains in Aslan's country; at the end of that story, they are brought there again and see Caspian brought back to life through a drop of Aslan's blood. (If it wasn't already obvious from the ending of VDT who Aslan is, and what his country is, this makes it unmistakable.) When Caspian raises the question of whether Jill and Eustace belong in their own world now that they're in Aslan's country too, we're told:

A great hope rose in the children's hearts. But Aslan shook his shaggy head. "No, my dears," he said. "When you meet me here again, you will have come to stay. But not now. You must go back to your own world for a time."

- And then of course in LB, all those who truly loved Aslan (even if, like Emeth, they didn't know it until they met him face to face!) find themselves in Aslan's country forever.

So, thinking it all over, although I'm a publication order purist — or at least a LWW-first purist — when it comes to reading the books, I would say that the chronological order would be more logical and sensible for Netflix to follow as they go about adapting "the whole arc" of the series, as they apparently intend to do. Even if it does reinforce the idea that the books were "intended" to be read in chronological order, which is now official canon, even though it's largely a furphy!

Regardless of the order, though, I think Netflix will have to introduce some kind of "framing device" to hold the stories together, and the best and most obvious thing I can think of is the gradual establishment of the Friends of Narnia. If MN is done first, it could include a flash-forward at the end to show Digory as the Professor, but that won't mean anything much to viewers unless they're already familiar with LWW. (Which many of them will be, as it's far and away the most famous Narnia book, but good film-makers work on the assumption that at least some of their viewers will be seeing this as absolute newcomers, with no prior knowledge of any of the original books at all.)

However, in the later books we do get hints of the Pevensies' lives in this world in between their Narnian adventures. In particular, between PC and VDT, we know that Peter goes to be tutored by the Professor (who has had to sell his huge old house by this stage) and Susan goes to America with their parents for 16 weeks. My "headcanon" is that Peter, while staying with the Professor, told him that he and Susan and Edmund and Lucy had been to Narnia a second time, and he and the Professor talked further about it. This would be where the Professor admits (as Peter must have guessed from their conversation at the end of LWW) that he has been to Narnia too, and he encourages Peter to arrange for all four siblings to get together with him again some time, and to meet his dear friend Miss Plummer, who was with him during that first visit to Narnia, when that world was created...

Now if this gets depicted as an "in between" sequence in the Netflix series, then if we've had MN first, this could be the moment for the "big reveal" that the Professor is Digory from MN and he's remained friends with Polly all these years. On the other hand, if the series starts with LWW, then MN could be introduced once all the Friends of Narnia start getting together, Eustace and Jill included after they've had their adventure in SC. At some stage, the younger Friends could ask Digory and Polly to tell them the full story of their own visit to Narnia. Cue the flashback to late Victorian London...

Also, if the forming of the Friends of Narnia comes in bit by bit in between the main stories from the books, this could also gradually introduce the fact that Susan — perhaps beginning from when she returns from her trip to America — has somehow been put off accepting the reality of Narnia and is pulling away more and more. Maybe she goes along to the first few meetings of the Friends (she must have attended at least a few, since Polly implicitly knows Susan well enough in LB to comment on her wrong notions of being "grown up"), but just sits there increasingly tight-lipped and uncomfortable, until finally she takes to ridiculing the others for "still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children"...

This could actually be a really good opportunity for a thoughtful director / script writer to expand on that aspect of the story a bit more — to show a little of Susan's inner conflict and perhaps at least get us thinking about why she made the choices she did (I'm aware some Narnia fans who didn't see the foreshadowing of Susan's fate in PC have been really upset by what Lewis "did" to her in the end). With, I would hope, at least a hint that all is not lost for her and that she can still find her way to Aslan's country from our world. I wouldn't want that to overpower the main story, but it would be nice if they could find some way of including that aspect.

Posted by: @courtenay

1) Character continuity. Jill and Eustace are the two central characters from our world in both those stories. They are several years older in The Last Battle (7 years, according to the possibly questionable timeline by Lewis), but they are very recognisably the same two people and there are plenty of references to their previous adventure — for example, Jill knowing how to navigate by the Narnian stars because of all the time they spent in the wild lands of the North.

There is that, and Tirian mentions to Eustace and Jill that he is 7th in descent from Rilian. So there's the family line that keeps going until then.

Posted by: @courtenay

2) Foreshadowing of Aslan's country — and this, in fact, is a continuity between VDT, SC and LB, if you read them as the last three in the series (which I did). There's actually a really good build-up across the endings of those three books, which is interrupted if you insert HHB and MN between SC and LB (in accordance with the publication order:

- In VDT, we reach the very edge of Aslan's country, with a glimpse of a range of mountains "beyond the sun", but only Reepicheep goes on to reach it (and we're not told, at that stage, that he got there for sure). Eustace and Lucy and Edmund then meet Aslan, who reveals, for the first time openly in the series, that there is a way into his country from our world too (and from all other worlds), and that he himself is in our world under another name.

- In SC, at the beginning, Eustace and Jill find themselves on one of those mountains in Aslan's country; at the end of that story, they are brought there again and see Caspian brought back to life through a drop of Aslan's blood. (If it wasn't already obvious from the ending of VDT who Aslan is, and what his country is, this makes it unmistakable.) When Caspian raises the question of whether Jill and Eustace belong in their own world now that they're in Aslan's country too, we're told:

Oh yes. Aslan's Country is teased in VDT, where Reepicheep goes there in a coracle but we don't see what happens to him afterwards. Then there's a glimpse of it in SC. Then it goes into full depth in LB.

Posted by: @courtenay

- And then of course in LB, all those who truly loved Aslan (even if, like Emeth, they didn't know it until they met him face to face!) find themselves in Aslan's country forever.

Oh yes, and there were probably some other Calormenes besides Emeth who were devoted followers of Aslan without even realizing it.

Posted by: @courtenay

Also, if the forming of the Friends of Narnia comes in bit by bit in between the main stories from the books, this could also gradually introduce the fact that Susan — perhaps beginning from when she returns from her trip to America — has somehow been put off accepting the reality of Narnia and is pulling away more and more. Maybe she goes along to the first few meetings of the Friends (she must have attended at least a few, since Polly implicitly knows Susan well enough in LB to comment on her wrong notions of being "grown up"), but just sits there increasingly tight-lipped and uncomfortable, until finally she takes to ridiculing the others for "still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children"...

This could actually be a really good opportunity for a thoughtful director / script writer to expand on that aspect of the story a bit more — to show a little of Susan's inner conflict and perhaps at least get us thinking about why she made the choices she did (I'm aware some Narnia fans who didn't see the foreshadowing of Susan's fate in PC have been really upset by what Lewis "did" to her in the end). With, I would hope, at least a hint that all is not lost for her and that she can still find her way to Aslan's country from our world. I wouldn't want that to overpower the main story, but it would be nice if they could find some way of including that aspect.

There is always that concern is how a film or series adaptation is going to handle Susan's loss of interest in Narnia or how they're going to address it. Are they going to exclude her from the LB movie or series or have her make a brief appearance? Then of course, they could end up changing her story, which they better not do.

I was just reading through the comments under the latest Talking Beasts podcast episode — I have to admit I haven't listened to the actual podcast yet (I will do that this evening!) — and someone identifying only as "F" has posted this argument that I reckon is very cogent:

They’re gonna do Nephew first; Not Wardrobe. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am, And I’ll say why: Only one of these two Narnia stories is an absolute stand-alone production that can afford to have YEARS up prep before any follow-up arrives. Wardrobe is like Fellowship of the Ring: It MUST be immediately followed up by the next few installments. Only for a different reason: Child actors aging out of their roles. Nephew is like how the Hobbit can be made as a stand-alone production before (or after) The Lord of the Rings movies, but Fellowship MUST be followed up with Two Towers & Return of the King. Starting with Wardrobe puts them in the same inevitable (and unenviable) place as BBC: having to plan 4 stories really quickly. Or Walden: not having enough time to get the scripts right for films 2 & 3, all the while the kid actors quickly age out of their kid roles. With Nephew, you have none of those concerns. There are new concerns: Like it MUST be GOOD. After Nephew, they must release Wardrobe (& it’s followups) within the next few years. (Between 3 and 5 years later. No more.) Having the actors for Jadis & Aslan return for the second one. Stuff like that. It seems like a more risky approach to begin a Narnia reboot, but it’s actually a much more practical business decision: Focus on making 1 good movie. Then prepare for the next 5 stories after its release. You CAN’T do that with Wardrobe, and (at this point in real life) expect to make it to the end.

(Many thanks to F, whoever he/she is, and my apologies for borrowing this comment without asking. If you're reading this, do come and join in with the forum community here, if you're not here already and writing under a different name! )

Seriously though, that is a really good point and one that I hadn't quite thought of, even though I've been mulling over the fact that as soon as a studio commits to producing LWW, they've automatically locked themselves into doing PC, VDT and SC in quick succession so that the child actors don't age out of their roles. Precisely because The Magician's Nephew doesn't have any such limitations, but is a "stand-alone" production, it would be a good one to start a total reboot with, because Netflix can see what the response to it is like and then plan for the must-be-consecutive quartet of stories once MN has established "new-look Netflix Narnia".

I still wouldn't say I'm absolutely convinced they will do MN first; there are really good arguments for it, and also really good arguments for doing LWW first, and we simply do not know yet which way Netflix will lean. There haven't been enough clear hints, let alone some kind of official announcement, to give an indication, which is why we're still having these discussions.

But, while it may be risky for them to start with a story that has never been adapted for the screen before and is therefore not nearly as familiar to the general public (except for those who've read the books!), The Magician's Nephew does have a lot of points in its favour. It's a very strong story with a whole lot of elements in it that none of the other Narnia books have:

- There's the Wood between the Worlds, with its quite mind-blowing promise of a potentially infinite number of other worlds (or maybe even universes) beyond our world and Narnia.

 - There's the relatively short but unforgettable visit to one of those other worlds — a dead world that had progressively degenerated into worse and worse evil until at last it was all destroyed in a moment through one (female!) ruler's total egocentricity. (Honestly, it's almost like something out of a classic Doctor Who episode.)

- There's the actual creation of Narnia, witnessed as it happens.

- There's a whole string of "reveals" for those who are already familiar with LWW, as probably over 50% of the audience will be — where the White Witch came from, how the lamppost got there, who the Professor was, why the wardrobe led into Narnia... Yes, those are spoilers, but none of them are so big that they ruin the actual plot of LWW if you know them beforehand. That image of a little girl stepping into a wardrobe and finding herself in a snowy wood, under a lamppost, is so iconic that I'm pretty sure that even among those who've never read LWW, or watched any of the adaptations of it, there'd be a huge percentage of people who are aware of that scene and know that that's how the story begins!

[Momentary digression to re-emphasise that when it comes to reading the books, I am a staunch advocate of beginning with LWW if this is one's absolute first encounter with Narnia, because the way the whole story is written is based on the assumption that the reader doesn't know anything about Narnia or Aslan beforehand, just like the four children. But that doesn't necessarily mean that a screen adaptation of Narnia needs to work in exactly the same way.]

- And finally, there's an emotional climax in MN that involves the most heart-wrenching decision faced by a character in any of the seven books — perhaps one of the most heart-wrenching in all children's literature (I certainly can't think of anything aimed at the same age group that even comes close).

All these things make The Magician's Nephew an immensely powerful and compelling stand-alone story that, if done well, should work brilliantly even for viewers who aren't familiar with Narnia — and for those who know a bit about Narnia (perhaps from the previous films) but have never read the books, this is a story that should have them going "Woah — I never knew that was in the Narnia series!!"

So, if Netflix does do MN first, I won't be surprised and will be quite happy with the idea, as long as they do a good job of it. But as there are also very good reasons for them to begin with LWW (as the most familiar story and the one that probably most viewers are going to expect), I'm still not betting any money either way!

@courtenay I don't have time to read your whole post yet but it's so cool that you quoted F because I was thinking of quoting them too in this thread. What they wrote just seemed really relevant.

In relation to the concept of the children aging out of their roles, I would like to make a point. In the Walden films, the character ages seemed much older than in the books. Except for Lucy, I believe. In the LWW book, Peter seemed only 12 years old. (If you look at the Narnia Timeline, he was 12 or 13 years old, depending on when his birthday was in the year.) [Forgive me if there has been another thread about character ages. I haven't been on the Forum much this year or last.]

In the 2005 movie, Peter seems about 15 years old to me. That is at least 2 years older than in the book of the same story. According to Lewis' Narnia timeline, Lucy was 7 or 8 years old during the events of LWW. So Georgie was about the same age. So they increased the gap in age between each child, making Peter about 7 years older than Lucy, instead of 5.

So Walden was already starting behind, if you consider they aged up the characters themselves! I suppose this was a creative decision - and maybe because they wanted Peter to be more of a warrior age, since they intensified the battle scenes.

So if the Netflix series makes Peter 12 years old (like BBC did), the children won't age out of their roles as quickly.

An additional thought is that, while Walden made one Narnia film at a time, there have been several franchises that filmed two or three movies at the same time. Back to the Future 2 + 3 were filmed at the same time, and so were the 3 Lord of the Rings films (with some extra filming for the second two, closer to their release. (I believe.) )

Therefore, they could always film MN and LWW at the same time, release them 6 or 12 months apart, and if they are happy with the number of subscriptions and viewership, proceed to make PC sooner than if they had made MN after LWW was released.

Posted by: @jonathan-paravel

Therefore, they could always film MN and LWW at the same time, release them 6 or 12 months apart, and if they are happy with the number of subscriptions and viewership, proceed to make PC sooner than if they had made MN after LWW was released.

There is that possibility. The Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy were actually released each a year apart- The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001, The Two Towers in 2002, and The Return of the King in 2003. So anything is possible: the Narnia films could be released one to two year, even if it was done chronologically.