Walden-era Narnia Producer Comments on Netflix’s Narnia Reboot
In a recent interview with Deadline, Mark Johnson, the producer on all three of Walden Media’s Chronicles of Narnia movies, has commented on the upcoming series reboot by Greta Gerwig at Netflix.
“I’m fascinated. First of all, I’m a gigantic fan of hers, so I can’t wait to see it… I can’t quite tell what she’s doing. Is she doing The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which, of course, we did years ago, or is she doing something else? Or is it a combination of them?”
Although Johnson appears uncertain over the direction that Gerwig intends to take with her film, it is now all but confirmed that she will be helming an adaptation of ‘The Magician’s Nephew’ for Netflix.
Despite his uncertainty on the details, Johnson nevertheless says he has high hopes for the film, in particular due to Greta Gerwig’s involvement in the project:
“I don’t know how secret it all is, I don’t know about it, but I’m not competitive about it… I can’t wait to see it, because whatever [Gerwig] does is going to be really good, and I’m sure, radically different from what we did.”
Deadline also reports that Mark Johnson praised the decision to release Narnia in IMAX, with the film currently scheduled for release on Thanksgiving 2026 in IMAX cinemas, followed by a streaming release on Netflix on Christmas Day 2026.
It’s really great to see how excited people in the film industry are about this project… I just hope that their faith in the creative team is rewarded by the final product. Fingers crossed!
It’s still weird to see it referred to it as the “Walden Era” – makes me feel old!
Some of us are still in our Walden era, LOL….
Good to see he’s excited about it!
If he is so uninformed that he doesn’t even know the film will be MN, is his opinion even relevant? Does he even know about the Meryl Streep casting? I’d be very curious to know his thoughts on that issue.
It is some very positive words from Mark Johnson 🙂 I like that he is non-competitive about it. That is a very Narnian attitude.
People keep going on and on about “the Meryl Streep casting” as if it’s been confirmed. We’ve only had two confirmed cast members: Emma Mackey and Carey Mulligan. Right now Meryl Streep-as-Aslan is in the same category as the once-rumored Mikey Madison or Charli XCX. But people just seem desperate to freak out about it anyway. As of right now, there is nothing concrete about Meryl Streep for Mark Johnson to know.
I don’t know if Mr. Johnson will be disappointed in the Meryl Streep casting if that is confirmed, but I think he has a good attitude towards the project. He most likely will not be able to have any determination in the final decisions about how the film is made, although his views are quite important. Let’s hope that Greta Gerwig’s films will please him and other fans of the Walden films as well as readers of the books.
How is it Tt production is about to begin, the kids are supposed to be learning horseback riding and camera tests should be about to begin while the costumes are getting the final tailoring but we don’t even know the costume designer . I like that Greta isn’t constantly tweeting like James Gunn, and maybe the children’s names should be kept private but there must be a healthy medium. Tbf she has always been like this https://youtu.be/H8H_s8sb-q4?si=eA0ExyAzEuP0UFWl&t=260
But expect news in the next three weeks
As for the Costume Designer, about 6 weeks ago, at a Q&A for the 20th Anniversary re-release of Pride & Prejudice, Jacqueline Durran mentioned that she was working with Greta Gerwig again and even though she didn’t specifically identify the project, I assumed she was referring to Narnia. It would make sense because Durran did the costumes for Barbie and Little Women, as well as for Pride & Prejudice, Atonement, Beauty and the Beast, The Darkest Hour, Blitz, 1917, and many other films.