Well, isn’t this interesting? Per Entertainment Weekly, Netflix has landed the rights to adapt C.S. Lewis’ fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia. Previously, Disney was adapting Lewis’ novels for the big screen, beginning with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in 2005. Disney had also adapted Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Captain America director Joe Johnston was set to film a movie based on the fourth book in the series — The Silver Chair — for Disney later this year, but after the Netflix news, we doubt that’s happening.
Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos sounded pretty psyched about the deal. “C.S. Lewis’ beloved Chronicles of Narnia stories have resonated with generations of readers around the world,” he said. “Families have fallen in love with characters like Aslan and the entire world of Narnia, and we’re thrilled to be their home for years to come.” Also jumping on board the hype train was Douglas Gresham, Lewis’ stepson and the holder of his estate:
"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. 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."
And Disney isn’t the very best medium with which to achieve that aim? I wonder what happened there.
Anyway, we’re not sure exactly what Netflix will do with the property. Producer Mark Gordon, who was attached to Disney’s Silver Chair production, mentioned “multiple productions” and ““both stellar feature-length and episodic programming.”
So Netflix is making a TV show? Movies? Both? “Narnia is one of those rare properties that spans multiple generations and geographies,” Gordon said. So a mini-series? Breakfast cereals? Baseball caps? We’ll have to wait for specifics. No production date was revealed.
UPDATE: Deadline reports that “Netflix is looking to build a Narnia cinematic universe that encompasses film and TV in the vein of Star Trek and Marvel, whose franchises cross over between mediums.” So…we have another one of those to look forward to.
News of the Narnia deal comes soon after the announcement that Amazon will adapt Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series as a TV show, as the biggest content creators on Earth scramble to fill the hole that will be left by Game of Thrones this time next year. Netflix may have a bit of a head start in terms of user base, though. According to a new report from bandwidth-management systems vendor Sandvine, the streaming service consumes 15% of the bandwidth in the world, more than any other single application. That number rises to nearly 20% here in the United States, and can go as high as 40% at night. Man, people really like Stranger Things.
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h/t Variety