It’s not that hard to believe that a massively popular series of books would be ripe for development into a new Cinematic Universe. After all, turning everything and anything into a Cinematic Universe is all the rage. Soon enough there will be a CU for food condiments. Just Make sure you remember who made that foolish proclamation first. Before then though we’ll have to contend with a big brash and probably bold (you kind of have to be these days) series of movies and tv series adapted from The Chronicles of Narnia books.
Early today Deadline put up the unexpected, if not totally surprising move that Netflix and eOne are joining forces in the venture. The project marks the first time that the rights to all seven books have been held by one company. While there’s no indication as to how many movies or tv series will come out of this, it sounds like this has been in the works for a bit. Back in 2016 eOne planned to move forward with the idea, but joining up with Sony in the process. Given how that company’s track record has been less than sterling recently, the jump to the streaming giant makes a load of sense.
This isn’t the first time The Chronicles of Narnia has been tackled in the adaption department, of course. Over the past several decades the series has been turned into a couple of tv series, as well as an animated feature. The most recent attempt was in the early part of the 21st century with three theatrical films the result. Disney put out both The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe and Prince Caspian, while Fox put out The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. All were produced by Walden Media.
The most interesting angle of this new? We are seeing the latest saga in the C.S. Lewis vs J.R.R. Tolkien feud. Ok, so it isn’t really a feud, but more so a common occurrence in pop culture. The two fantasy franchises, written by long time friends, find themselves competing against one another, once again. Previously they had animated features go head-to-head. Then the most recently theatrical trilogies came out shortly after the other. So naturally this Netflix announcement comes months after Amazon set forth on their $1 billion adaptation of Tolkien’s works. How either of them will turn out, we haven’t the foggiest.
This one seems to be in the earliest of stages, so more news should come out soon. We’ll make sure to keep you up to date, as long as interest is there. Until then, are you excited by the prospect of a Narnia Cinematic Universe? Are you sad Joe Johnson never got to make the 4th purposed film years back? Or are you more of a sci-fi person, rather than fantasy? Let us know in the comments below, while we gorge ourselves on some Turkish delight.
