Netflix is definitely hit or miss when it comes to what ideologies they push into their shows (I've considered dropping it for that reason) but they are capable of doing family-friendly things do. They do allow for freedom for the creators and, sadly, that usually means the creators are free to do the things TV and movie censors wouldn't allow them. However, the positive could be that the likes of Gresham could ensure the more Biblical messages get through. Netflix does post some Christian movies on their services so it's not unheard of it.

They do allow for freedom for the creators and, sadly, that usually means the creators are free to do the things TV and movie censors wouldn't allow them. However, the positive could be that the likes of Gresham could ensure the more Biblical messages get through. Netflix does post some Christian movies on their services so it's not unheard of it.

As I pointed out when all this was still a rumor, Netflix has been looking to expand their family-friendly content to get a wider audience. So yeah, it's likely that Narnia was a major part of that effort.

The THING I’m excited for with this Netflix adaptation is that we may be presented with multiple Narnia adaptations PRETTY quickly:

Like, in HALF the time it took to publish the books.

Instead of 6 to 7 years (1950-1956),
more like 3 to 4 years (2020-2024).

(Netflix announced ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ in late 2014 before releasing it from early 2017 to early 2019. The 13-book series took 7 to 8 years to publish, but the adaptation took only 2-3 years.
I understand that Narnia and ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ are two completely different beasts, and the latter doesn’t require a large budget or single stand-alone adaptations in order to work.)

Given that Narnia was announced in late 2018, I think we could see a Feature Film adaptation of MN by late 2020.

So here’s yet ANOTHER prediction for Narnia,
Best Case Scenario (For myself, at least)

‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ (4 Feature Films, 3 Episodic Miniseries. December, 2020 - December, 2024):

‘The Magician’s Nephew’ (Feature Film released in Cinemas: December, 2020)

‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ (Episodic Miniseries released in June, 2021)

‘The Horse and His Boy’ (Feature Film released in Cinemas: December, 2021)

‘Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia’ (Episodic Miniseries released in June, 2022)

‘The Voyage of the Dawn Treader’ (Episodic Miniseries released in June, 2023)

‘The Silver Chair’ (Feature Film released in Cinemas: December, 2023)

‘The Last Battle’ (Feature Film released in Cinemas: December, 2024)

^ That's wild to think about. A film adaptation of LB always seemed a very dim possibility, but now we might get one in just a few years.

It reminds me of when Disney revealed their plan to release a Star Wars movie every movie year and I realized that the number of Star Wars films was going to double very quickly.

If these films/series are pushed out this quickly, it would bring some positives and negatives for me.

The positives are that I feel more confident that we will see all of the books adapted than I did when we were going just one Hollywood production at a time and that the actors won't age too significantly between films/episodes.

One of the negatives is that I hope that a faster release schedule doesn't mean a sacrifice in quality. I hope they are willing to take enough time to figure out how they are going to adapt these stories and don't just want to pump them out as fast as possible.

The second negative is just a fan thing, but I would rather have more time between releases for anticipation, analyzing and discussing the news etc.

I have a different negative for fast releases, and that's the ages of the actors vs character ages in the books. Even if you push the LWW Pevensies ages to about as old as people will tolerate... say 16, 14, 12, 10ish, in two to three years, they're not going to be very adult-ish for Last Battle. We may be looking at the adult actors at the end of LWW reprising their role in LB. Or the CGI magic that I've seen animators use a lot lately.

But having said that, I'm more than willing to trade that off for finally have a set of seven.

Even if you push the LWW Pevensies ages to about as old as people will tolerate... say 16, 14, 12, 10ish, in two to three years, they're not going to be very adult-ish for Last Battle. We may be looking at the adult actors at the end of LWW reprising their role in LB. Or the CGI magic that I've seen animators use a lot lately.

In that scenario they'd have to probably use adult actors in HBB as well.

I've thought about this possibility before, and while I wouldn't have a problem with using adult actors in LB and HHB, on the other hand, I do see the appeal of using the same actors for the Pevensies all the way through the series. I'm a little of two minds about it.

I have a different negative for fast releases, and that's the ages of the actors vs character ages in the books. Even if you push the LWW Pevensies ages to about as old as people will tolerate... say 16, 14, 12, 10ish, in two to three years, they're not going to be very adult-ish for Last Battle. We may be looking at the adult actors at the end of LWW reprising their role in LB. Or the CGI magic that I've seen animators use a lot lately.

Thanks for the imput guys!
With regards to the characters' ages in the books - the C.S. Lewis timeline notwithstanding - I think the Narnia books give enough wiggle room for creative interpretation. Even the illustrations are ambiguous to the ages of the kids. Both Eustace & Jill could be anywhere from 13 years to 17 years old in The Last Battle, if you look at the evidence. Also: The Friends of Narnia are described as looking BOTH OLDER AND YOUNGER than they used to be. Go figure. I still think a Mayozaki-type animated Narnia film series would do the books justice in that regards. [That's enough. I wrote an extensive post that was deleted by an error. I'll keep this brief.]

If my predicted Narnia adaptations comes true - and it won't - it would look sort of like this (in terms of character ages):

"The Magician's Nephew" (December, 2020)
Polly actress (13 years old)
Digory actor (14 years old)

"The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" (June, 2021)
Peter actor (15 years old)
Susan actress (14 years old)
Edmund actor (12 years old)
Lucy actress (10 years old)

"The Horse and His Boy" (Decemeber, 2021)
Shasta actor (16 years old)
Aravis actress (15 years old)

"Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia" (June, 2022)
Peter (16 years old)
Susan (15 years old)
Edmund (13 years old)
Lucy (11 years old)
Caspian actor (17 years old)

"The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" (June, 2023)
Edmund (14 years old)
Lucy (12 years old)
Caspian (18 years old)
Eustace actor (11 years old)

"The Silver Chair" (December, 2023)
Caspian (19 years old)
Eustace (12 years old)
Jill actress (12 years old)

"The Last Battle" (December, 2024)
Eustace (13 years old)
Jill (13 years old)
Tirian actor (21 years old)
Cameos:
Polly (17 years old)
Digory (18 years old)
Peter (19 years old)
Susan (18 years old)
Edmund (16 years old)
Lucy (14 years old)
Shasta (19 years old)
Aravis (18 years old)
Caspian (20 years old)

^ What if HHB was moved to right before LB? Then the Edmund actor would be 16-ish and the Susan actress would be 18-ish and they could play the roles themselves instead of casting older versions of themselves. They would still be younger than in the book, but is it really that important? The main thing is that Susan would be old enough to marry. And then maybe cast actors in the 11-12 range for Shasta and Aravis instead to give a greater age gap between them and the Pevensies?

Wow, late 2020?!?!? I hope that turns out to be correct because that's WAY shorter than I planned on waiting for this to come out!
I know Glumpuddle did review videos of the Walden movies on his YouTube channel, but I wonder if the podcasters would be willing to do reaction videos on the Narniaweb YouTube channel once movies/shows start coming out. From all I hear, Glumpuddle's reactions would be fun to watch!

I would LOVE to see them do all seven books if only they could do them justice and stick reasonably faithfully to the plots and the spirit of the originals. To me, the Walden film of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was really well done cinematically, as a film in its own right, but they added so many extra scenes and subplots — especially all the dramatic fighting and chasing scenes — that I felt it totally missed the gentle, understated nature of the original story. It was a good film, but it just wasn't Narnia for me. (I haven't seen the other two films, but I understand they departed even further from the books and Dawn Treader especially seems to have been pretty universally panned even by people who enjoyed the earlier films, so that put me off.)

It would also be wonderful if they could keep the Christian elements in (those are at the heart of the stories, after all), but make them subtle, as they generally are in the books, so that these shows can be enjoyed on multiple levels like the books can be — exciting adventures in themselves, but also with a deeper message if you're alert to it. It'd be completely possible to do that, I should think, given the right director and writers and so on.

It'll certainly be exciting to see what unfolds — I have to admit I don't actually have a Netflix account, but I'd be happy to subscribe just for Narnia if they do a good job of it!

Happy New Year to All. A New Decade. A New opportunity for Narnia. I want the best for it, but I’m not too confident it’ll happen yet. I mean, last decade we saw one Narnia film. So I’m not optimistic yet, not like I was at exactly 10 years ago. (15-year-olds are less world weary than 25-year-olds. Heck, they’re less world-weary than 16-year-olds really.) I am looking forward to news but I’m not holding my breath, yet. I look forward to being proven wrong with great Narnia adaptations. I Hope you all had a wonderful holiday. Now back to work.

I'd prefer most of the books turned into series but it sounds as if most will be films... but I just really want faithful adaptations that make me (and general audiences) fall in love with the world of Narnia.

I'm hopeful that this can be a good decade for all things Narnia!

I guess I am both excited and nervous about Netflix adapting all seven books.

I am excited to see The Horse and His Boy, The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle getting an adaptation on screen, because they never had before.

BBC-Mini Series adapted The Silver Chair, and it will get another treatment from Netflix.

I am kind of nervous about if they're going to get it right. They'll make changes, I'm sure, but I am kind of nervous.

I don't think you can expect anything religious from Netflix, but perhaps, Narnia will draw in secular audiences. I'm sure even the non-religious will be able to pick up the religious theme of Narnia.

Posted by: @jasminetarkheena

I don't think you can expect anything religious from Netflix, but perhaps, Narnia will draw in secular audiences. I'm sure even the non-religious will be able to pick up the religious theme of Narnia.

Yes, I hope so too. One of the things I've always loved about Narnia is that it has strong Christian themes but they only become really obvious in a handful of places, so people of any background can enjoy them, and many do. If Lewis had made his books too heavy-handed and preachy, they probably wouldn't still be in print and considered classics around the world today. But as they are, they speak to all kinds of people, and yes, at least some readers will be inspired by these books to find out more about who Aslan is in our world. I was, anyway, as a child — that's why I call C.S. Lewis "the man who first introduced me to God". I'm hoping Netflix will be able to capture that somehow — so that their versions can be enjoyed by all kinds of audiences, but still have that deeper message intact for those who want to look for it.

I am growing increasingly skeptical that Narnia will make it all the way to seven series.

Not just because so very few series that start get to that number, but also because there have been several high profile series recently that have been fairly ruthlessly axed just weeks after release.

The adaptations of Cowboy Beebop and Jupiter's Legacy at Netflix were both produced to much anticipation, and released to much fan fare, but neither connected with an audience and both were formally axed just 2-3 weeks after release. No second chances, no waiting to see if they find an audience over time - just a swift axe.

Hopefully at least then we can get a Magicians Nephew out of this deal. That way if it takes off, then great, but if it meets a similar to fate to other shows then we can all just pretend like it's the Walden or BBC prequel we never got.