Netflix have been quite cagey about their adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia. They’ve not released much beyond the fact that Greta Gerwig is directing and Emma Mackey has been cast, apparently as the White Witch. All the rest is either conjecture or leaks. We don’t even have an official confirmation that it will be The Magician’s Nephew, though all evidence points to it.

Now a couple of new pieces of information have come to light that make me question what is going on with this film.

NarniaWeb, a very reliable source for this kind of thing, has gotten hold of some set photos, showing the production shooting in London, in what looks to be a 1950s setting. This followed a recent casting call looking for boys between eleven and fourteen to appear in another 1950s-set scene filming in Manchester.

Looking at the on-set photos, it all looks very post-war, with 1950s fashions and cars. There are also several photos shown that include dates from 1955 (incidentally the year Magician’s Nephew was published), suggesting something is going on here.

It’s a bit early to say for sure, but it seems that Greta Gerwig is updating the story to set at least part of it in the ’50s. This is a change from the books. The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe was set around 1941, with the four Pevensie children being evacuees from London during the Blitz, with most of the books being set in the years immediately after, so it’s not much of an update to set these stories a decade later. Magician’s Nephew, however, serves as a prequel to the series showing the creation of Narnia, and takes place in 1900s Edwardian England. This would mean that if we keep the same rough chronology, LWW would be set in the 1980s or early ’90s.

This would be a huge change if so. There’s something essential about the setting. It’s hard to imagine children raised in the post-’60s era knowing or caring much about the responsibilities or kingship, or seeking the same kinds of adventures.

There’s also the fact that C.S. Lewis was a child in the Edwardian era, so there’s perhaps something a little autobiographical about Diggory Kirke, the young protagonist of TMN, who also has a sick mother (Lewis’s died when he was a child) and goes on adventures in a magical world, similar to the ones Lewis used to invent as a child.

The suggestion this is just a framing device, perhaps featuring someone reminiscing about their time in Narnia, also makes no sense, as all those who’ve visited the magical world die in The Last Battle–with the infamous exception of Susan–so an older Diggory would not be alive in 1955.

What’s on Netflix claims that two children shown in the behind the scenes photos are playing Diggory Kirke and Polly Plummer, the heroes of the book, but I’m not so sure about this. It seems more like speculation than anything solid.

My first thought when I saw them was that they looked more like the characters of Jill Pole and Eustace Scrubb from The Silver Chair. If they are, then Emma Mackey could be playing the Lady of the Green Kirtle, an antagonist very similar to the white witch, while Daniel Craig (rumoured to be playing Andrew Ketterley) could have the role of Puddleglum. I hope not.

But maybe it’s not so crazy. In 2023, Netflix Film chief Scott Stuber said that Gerwig and co were “trying to figure out how they can break the whole arc of [the Narnia series].”

I’m not sure what he meant by that. Maybe it’s just the decision to begin with Magician’s Nephew rather than the more traditional approach of starting with Wardrobe, something both the BBC and Disney/Walden Media adaptations did.

Every new piece of information about this film is curiouser and curiouser. From the news that Meryl Streep could be playing Aslan to a casting call suggesting there would be three child protagonists, rather than the book’s two. Who knows what’s going on?

Regardless, nothing I’ve seen or heard so far about this film has given me any hope. It’s still unclear what the final result will be, but if Puddleglum taught me anything, it’s that pessimism is always the best course, and as no one has yet managed to make a truly worthy Narnia adaptation in the last seventy-five years, I doubt that Netflix will be the ones to do it in 2026.

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The Narnia series are among my favourite books, so I’ll be following any news and developments on the Netflix adaptation closely. If that also interests you, then please subscribe so you don’t miss a post.