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http://www.ladbible.com/entertainment/film-and-tv-netflix-to-launch-narnia-cinematic-universe-with-series-and-films-20181003

Netflix has announced that it will be bringing C.S. Lewis' classic Chronicles of Narnia books to life on its online streaming service, having closed a multi-year deal with The C.S. Lewis Company to develop new series and film projects.

According to Deadline, the agreement marks the very first time that the rights to all seven books in the Narnia series have been held by the same company.

"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," Douglas Gresham, stepson of C.S. Lewis, said in a statement released by Netflix.

"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."

Netflix will be developing stories from across the series, turning them into both films and 'episodic' TV programmes.

Mark Gordon of Entertainment One, Douglas Gresham and Vincent Sieber will serve as executive producers for the series and producers for the feature films.

Potentially very exciting. I feel The Chronicles of Narnia are a timeless set of stories that every kid should get the chance to experience, whether that's through books or adaptations or the rather excellent audiobooks/dramas (Patrick Stewart's reading of The Last Battle is chilling in places). Leaving the religious connotations of the stories aside, they are just wonderful, innocent fantasy stories and an excellent introduction to fantasy fiction in general.

I do hope though that this is more towards a set of adaptations of the books rather than a Cinematic Universe attempt with new stories/characters, at least at first. It's interesting that they're saying films and episodic shows from the outset, but with Netflix that's much of a muchness; some of their original show episodes run nearly feature length anyway. But no one wants Mister Tumnus: Origins...

But yeah, high hopes and fingers crossed. Since LotR and the last crack at Narnia, there's been something of a death of classic, innocent fantasy and everything's been a bit Game of Thrones flavoured, which doesn't really appeal to me at all. Let's have some simple, straightforward and ultimately fun storytelling for a change!

You underestimate the power of the darkside of geekdom. There will be some jackass on here wailing about the death of his childhood.

It's been done to death, and done well before, so why remake it? Do they really have no original ideas?

Has it been done to death though? There were the old BBC TV ones that were crap, and the last lot which started out well but didn't get around to some of the best stories. I can't think of any other TV/movie versions?

Not to mention that a big chunk of the target audience won't have been born when the last round of films were made.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
You underestimate the power of the darkside of geekdom. There will be some jackass on here wailing about the death of his childhood.

well The Last Battle had a lot of that childhood death going on, that'll learn Susan to grow up

 BaconCatBug wrote:
It's been done to death, and done well before,

Neither of these things is true.

Yeah Narnia is far from done to death. There's the old BBC series that was pretty faithful, if sporting Dr. Who levels of visuals - good for its day on TV but pales in comparison to what can be done today. They also had solid actors which makes a big difference.

The movies have been done a few times, but mostly focusing on the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, I think there is at least one if not two animated ones kicking around. But again a lot of this is quite a long time ago, at least 20 years. The more recent films were quite a shift from the original material - the new Dawn Tredder was an ever increasing shift until the end was a totally separate affair.


If they can keep faithful I'd welcome the series coming to the TV in a big way. Would love to see them get further than the first few books too, The Horse and His Boy; The Magicians Nephew and The Last Battle, often get rather overlooked (or just missed as series/films lose steam before they get there).

I hope they start right from the beginning with the magic rings, the white witch escaping her frozen hell world, and the lion singing narnia into existance.

Crimson Devil wrote:You underestimate the power of the darkside of geekdom. There will be some jackass on here wailing about the death of his childhood.

BaconCatBug wrote:It's been done to death, and done well before, so why remake it? Do they really have no original ideas?

Azreal13 wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
It's been done to death, and done well before,

Right?

More like, been done a few times over the last...30 years?

And done 'somewhat well'.

Interested to see how this one ends up!

 Lance845 wrote:
I hope they start right from the beginning with the magic rings, the white witch escaping her frozen hell world, and the lion singing narnia into existance.

It's distinctly possible. The fact that it's films and series may well indicate that we'll get series to explore some of the less prominent parts of the stories, linking together movies focusing on the key events from the books.

Or the total reverse. Who knows?!

 Lance845 wrote:
I hope they start right from the beginning with the magic rings, the white witch escaping her frozen hell world, and the lion singing narnia into existance.

Yeah, I'd love to see them fully embrace the weirdness of The Magician's Nephew. There's some awesomely strange stuff in there. I can see why the films didn't really go near it as it's so different tonally, but here they have the chance to approach it in a slightly different way.

I really wish some other fantasy series would get the TV or movie treatment.

...such as?

(And isn't a bit odd to wander into the Narnia TV series thread to post that? )

The last Narnia films were fine. They were about as successful adaptations as the Harry Potter movies. If they weren't financially successful, it's because the interest wasn't there. The source material is pretty uneven, and the baked-in religious messages will be incredibly difficult to handle without alienating a lot of people with today's polarization. It seems like a costly move that will yield, at best, an okay-but-not-Harry Potter/LOTR/GOT series.

 Mysterio wrote:
...such as?

(And isn't a bit odd to wander into the Narnia TV series thread to post that? )

Depends on what they are going for. For family friendly fantasy, there are a ton of popular book series that could be adapted into shows. Bunnicula, Percy Jackson (for only the second time), the works of Dianne Wynne, Susan Cooper, Diane Duane, Lloyd Alexander, and probably dozens more that have come out in recent years. For spectacle, Butcher's Codex Alera series would be amazing, as would Turtledove's Darkness (fantasy world war) series, Elric/Moorcock, Pern (not actually fantasy), any of the big LOTR imitators. If they want an adventure series, Solomon Kane, Fahfrd and Grey Mauser, Dying Earth, any long-running series from the age of pulp serials. For edgeier content, Thomas Covenant or Banewreaker, or any of those series that try to make magic kinky. There's just so much material out there that there's no reason to go back to the barrel so soon, especially a barrel that looks tapped out.

Looking forward to this!

On the other front, I'd like to see Xanth!

The "Baked in religious messages" are not really that heavily baked in. It's the kind of religious message where if you are shown or see the parallels you can get where the links are, but where if you don't you won't see it.

Aslan being sacrificed upon the stone table is linked to the sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross. Both are the same "act" of sacrifice and rebirth, but Aslan is never lain out upon a cross, nor is it widely said that upon Jesus's rebirth his cross shattered.

In general the links are there, but its rather like the links to Norse mythology in Lord of the Rings.


So I don't see any general problems with religion there, its just an undertone and setting that establishes some basic concepts, but by and large the books never tried to force feed it to you.



To my mind Narnia is a solid choice. It's well known and yet hasn't been done to death and there is room for a modern, quality retelling of the story that can keep faithful to the original source material. I would argue one major failing of the newer films we had recently was that they increasingly deviated from the source material - the Dawn Tredder was honestly nothing like the book at all come the end.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
The last Narnia films were fine. They were about as successful adaptations as the Harry Potter movies. If they weren't financially successful, it's because the interest wasn't there. The source material is pretty uneven, and the baked-in religious messages will be incredibly difficult to handle without alienating a lot of people with today's polarization. It seems like a costly move that will yield, at best, an okay-but-not-Harry Potter/LOTR/GOT series.

 Mysterio wrote:
...such as?

(And isn't a bit odd to wander into the Narnia TV series thread to post that? )

Depends on what they are going for. For family friendly fantasy, there are a ton of popular book series that could be adapted into shows. Bunnicula, Percy Jackson (for only the second time), the works of Dianne Wynne, Susan Cooper, Diane Duane, Lloyd Alexander, and probably dozens more that have come out in recent years. For spectacle, Butcher's Codex Alera series would be amazing, as would Turtledove's Darkness (fantasy world war) series, Elric/Moorcock, Pern (not actually fantasy), any of the big LOTR imitators. If they want an adventure series, Solomon Kane, Fahfrd and Grey Mauser, Dying Earth, any long-running series from the age of pulp serials. For edgeier content, Thomas Covenant or Banewreaker, or any of those series that try to make magic kinky. There's just so much material out there that there's no reason to go back to the barrel so soon, especially a barrel that looks tapped out.

I wouldn't mind seeing the Belgariad and Mallereon done. Now there's some fun stories. As an aside, Bunnicula has actually had a relatively new cartoon series.

The Horse and His Boy is my favourite; I'd like to see that onscreen. As for the religious angle, I read the books in primary school, and missed all of that. Even the "you know me by another name in your world". The stories still work, IMO.

Actually, my first exposure to the story was a pantomime version of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. I think I got the book that Christmas and went on from there. For some reason I never owned The Last battle, which is slightly annoying from a completest point of view. I bet that edition costs a fortune second hand now.

The Belgariad? Sure, why not, although they'd probably go too far with the knowing self-referential angle. I'd like to see the Elenium done, although the slightly creepy May-December romances might need to be tweaked.

Thomas Covenant? That's not so much edgy as dull. On the other hand, leprosy's curable; that ought to get rid of the protagonist's tedious angst by the end of the pre-credits sequence.
Lloyd Alexander deserves a better adaptation than the Disney one. There's also Alan Garner (although I think some of his books were already adapted). I also remember liking some of Marion Zimmer Bradly's Darkover novels in the early 90s; an interesting Galactic Empire meets magic world idea (although the SF elements tended to keep to the background), although the themes would upset the usual suspects in here, I think.

Tales of Earthsea is a good child-friendly fantasy universe which has had a couple of hit or miss stabs at screen adaptation and IMO deserves the major resources that Netflix could bring to bear.

There was some utterly dismal US TV one-off in the 1990s, I think, and Studio Ghibli did a visually lush but critically not particularly successful animation film a few years ago. It was the first film directed by Miyazaki's son, and was about a 3/5 effort.

The main downside of Earthsea is that it isn't battle/action oriented. I don't know how important that is to modern TV audiences.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lance845 wrote:
I hope they start right from the beginning with the magic rings, the white witch escaping her frozen hell world, and the lion singing narnia into existance.

It's interesting that the books take a different order. I don't know why. Presumably, Lewis only came to feel he needed a creation myth book for Narnia after having written the first few novels.

That said, The Magician's Nephew is a really good book.

Thomas Covenant would be hard considering that one of the characters first actions in the series is near enough to full on rape. It's a book that I think would nearly fail in TV adaptation unless they had a heavy influence of the narrators voice in the early part. It's one of those "You have to be in the mind of the character to really understand their motivations". Esp as a modern day audience is going to be quite open to the idea of travelling to magical worlds.



I know that Temeraire had some noise a few years back about a possible Peter Jackson film being made which never came to pass and that would be one major film to bring to life - and if done on TV even bigger when you consider that they would either have to go full CGI or build a huge animatronic central core of several dragons - even if detail were added with greenscreen, they'd still need a moving frame to act and move upon


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:


It's interesting that the books take a different order. I don't know why. Presumably, Lewis only came to feel he needed a creation myth book for Narnia after having written the first few novels.

That said, The Magician's Nephew is a really good book.

The Horse and his Boy also takes place at the end of the Lion Witch and Wardrobe setting and is actually well within the long period after the fall of the Witch when the children grow up to rule Narnia. However it was written long after, but interestingly it was written before the Silver Chair and then released after that one as Lewis wanted to release the Caspian Trilogy as a single segment of books, one after the other.

I had a boxed set as a child. I think they were presented in order of publication and I read them in that order. It worked for me at the time.

I don't think there's a compelling reason to make a TV series in the publication order except you need to start with either The Magician's Nephew or The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe since these are the two books that establish the existence of Narnia and its relation to the Pevensey family who with their friends drive the narrative of most of the rest of the titles.

I think some of the initial mystery and setup of the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe would be lost if they started with the Magicians Nephew. To me that book is well placed after the first book as it is more of a filler into the background and history of the world. I think if it were shown up front then - for those who have not read the book - any mystery about Jadis or evil or about the Wardrobe would be entirely lost. It would essentially invalidate large chunks of discovery of the first book.

It's better coming after and deepening our understanding of how the world came to be and how it works.

On further thinking I agree with you.

Part of the joy of reading The Liion, The Witch and The Wardrobe is discovering a mysterious new magical world though the eyes of some young children.

That would be spoilt by explaining the creation story right at the beginning.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I really wish some other fantasy series would get the TV or movie treatment.

Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles. It's YA fantasy, with humor and drama, and a fiesty female co-protagonist. The books won Newbery awards, and although they're a fun read, they're also more 'about stuff' than most YA stuff you see. There are messages in there that I didn't really understand until I reread them as an adult. They're also short enough to easily adapt to other mediums.

Disney did a terrible, terrible adaptation in the 1980s (The Black Cauldron), but no one remembers that film. It's possible that Disney is still sitting on the rights, just waiting for a rainy day. But really, I'm *baffled* that no one's gone there in this day and age when you can get any bad idea greenlit.

Edit: Apparently it's being kicked around at Disney. But that could be many years away if ever.

https://variety.com/2016/film/news/chronicles-of-prydain-movie-disney-1201733058/#article-comments

Yeah, Prydain would be a very good shout for a series. I kind of feel those books never really got the recognition they deserved, I only ever saw them once, tucked away at the back of the high school library fantasy section.

 Overread wrote:
Thomas Covenant would be hard considering that one of the characters first actions in the series is near enough to full on rape. It's a book that I think would nearly fail in TV adaptation unless they had a heavy influence of the narrators voice in the early part. It's one of those "You have to be in the mind of the character to really understand their motivations". Esp as a modern day audience is going to be quite open to the idea of travelling to magical worlds.

I can't even imagine how you'd film it (and I'm saying that as a fan of the books), given how much of the narrative, the workings of the villain and the big decisions revolve around the unseen emotional struggles of characters. And the first book is already something of a dead weight that you have to push through to get to the point where you can understand what the series is trying to do and what makes it unique.

Which is a pity, because if nothing else, the series has some visual images and battles that would be stunning to see realised on screen. It might actually be better to do something like the adaptations of Preacher or The Dark Tower--have same characters, world and themes but tell a heavily divergent story without losing what made the series unique.

Donaldson's "Gap Cycle" would also be fantastic, but again, hard to film/get around certain things which are crucial to the story.

Would LOVE a "Dark is Rising" series done right, and completely, though, as someone mentioned earlier.

It was that series and the Hobbit that started me off on a life long love of SF/Fantasy reading...

 Paradigm wrote:
Yeah, Prydain would be a very good shout for a series. I kind of feel those books never really got the recognition they deserved, I only ever saw them once, tucked away at the back of the high school library fantasy section.

I think it's mainly because they've been around for a few decades, and haven't had movie or TV adaptations pushing people to rediscover them. Guess we'll see if anything happens with the Disney project.

The fourth book in the series -- Taran Wanderer -- is darn near a masterpiece. But it's something you only fully appreciate as an adult, because it's about the bittersweet realities of growing up and finding oneself. What's more, it beautifully sets up the final book by giving readers a matured hero. It's too bad the YA stuff that people pay attention to these days isn't even half as good as Alexander's Prydain series.

 gorgon wrote:

Disney did a terrible, terrible adaptation in the 1980s (The Black Cauldron), but no one remembers that film.

I can't speak for its authenticity to the original source material; but that's a great 80s film!!