Nine years have passed the since last Chronicles of Narnia adaptation, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but the franchise does live on. Previously, Joe Johnston was supposed to adapt The Silver Chair as the next movie although that project is now dead. What’s very much alive is a Chronicles of Narnia television series with Netflix, and it has just added Coco writer Matthew Aldrich as its major driving force.
THR reports Aldrich, a co-writer on Pixar’s excellent film Coco, to oversee Netflix’s series based on Chronicles of Narnia, and all of the multiple upcoming adaptations from across C.S. Lewis’ classic novels. It’s unclear which of Lewis’ books will be part of this initial series.
The world of Narnia was established in 1950 with his first book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe which follows siblings Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy as they enter a magical world of talking animals, powerful witches, grand kingdoms, and the great benevolent lion known as Aslan.
The movies were a huge disappointment, with the highest-grossing film being the first with $745M. Perhaps it was competition from the powerhouse Harry Potter franchise, but Narnia always felt like expanded TV movies than Hollywood blockbusters. Lewis’ stories, which heavily thematic and dig into some deeply mature territory, may be better suited for the serialized format.
