Ivana Primorac: The Magician’s Nephew is “Daunting” to Work On
In a recently surfaced podcast interview, Narnia’s Hair & Make-Up Designer Ivana Primorac has been talking to the hosts of The Reel Girls Club podcast about getting to work on Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Narnia movie; which she confirms to be an adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew.
Primorac’s remarks begin around the 1:07:26 mark in the episode, which was recorded back in December:
Ivana: […] Greta Gerwig always has an amazing project ahead.
Interviewer: I’ve seen she’s working on Narnia now.
Ivana: And I’m going to do that with her. So that’s kind of daunting at the moment. So that feels like: “How are we going to do that?”
Interviewer: Is it the whole series?
Ivana: No, she’s going to kick off with the first book. So she’s going to do the first book, which is ‘The Magician’s Nephew’. And that one’s never been done before and it’s brilliant. So yeah, so we’re going to do that.
Whilst the fact of Gerwig adapting The Magician’s Nephew has been an open secret for many months now, there has still not yet been any official announcement from Netflix regarding this. Primorac’s comments therefore make her the most senior member of the production team so far to have confirmed that Greta Gerwig’s movie will be an adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew.
Earlier in the conversation, Primorac also discussed how she and the Narnia team have been watching “really old” period films together as part of Gerwig’s preparation process:
It’s interesting because working with Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach recently, they show films every Sunday that inspire them for that particular project. […] everyone who’s going to relevant creatively on that film, in fact, they invite everyone who wants to come, but usually it’s the creatives of the film.
We’ll meet on Sunday mornings in some cinema in London and watch a movie that they find relevant. And that is just the best fun you can imagine. And I’ve seen some films with them that I never knew about, and you can’t even imagine why they would be relevant. And then you watch them and you go, oh my god, that’s so amazing that it’s so relevant. And it’s good to do that collectively as well. So you can all discuss it afterwards.”
Back in March, we speculated that some of the films screened for crew members may have included Baby Face (1933), Ball of Fire (1941), Double Indemnity (1944), The Lady Eve (1941), Young Frankenstein (1974), and All About Eve (1950).
Filming on The Magician’s Nephew is expected to begin in the coming months, though no official start date has been announced.
Even though we kind of knew it already, it’s nice to get it confirmed that The Magician’s Nephew is the book they’re adapting right now.
I’m glad it’s really going to be The Magician’s Nephew. It’s my favorite book, I’m looking forward to it.
Same
Good to know they’re doing a little referencing/research! I suppose this also lays the whole question of which book they are doing to rest (for all three people who were still wondering lol).
Looking forward to seeing the time period clothing they choose to go with! (Since it’s the MN, will Polly and Digory stay in Victorian English clothes in Narnia or will they switch over somehow? Decisions!) Walden Media/Disney’s movies with Isis Mussenden doing the costumes will be hard to beat. But, my hopes in this production have raised slightly with the recent confirmation of three actors. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!
You know what? Now that we have a hair & makeup designer telling us “that’s kind of daunting at the moment. So that feels like: “How are we going to do that?”” – it made me think that it’s more likely they are keeping it in the year 1900 like in the book. Because makeup in London then would have been much different than in 2025. However then my thought process adjusted and I realised – maybe she’s talking about Jadis and her sister from Charn. And the change of Jadis’s appearance towards the end of the story.
So maybe we’re no closer to knowing what time period this movie will be set in.
But that’s how it went in my head!
Reminds me of Greta Gerwig’s earlier comments about being “terrified” and having “nightmares” about adapting Narnia out of respect for the source material. Narnia is a special series and should be treated as such. We’ll see how that translates to the final film!
@Jonathan Parvel — interesting point about the time period. I guess her “how are we going to do that” quote could also refer to the amount of designs she’ll need to create or the different creatures who’ll require make-up. Hopefully the time-period will be similar to the book though!
It will be very interesting because she will be creating historically accurate Victorian clothes and also inventing clothes for the world of Charn. This is a unique opportunity. I look forward, especially to her costumes for Jadis and her sister. I love the ice dress the Disney/Walden version made for Jadis because it is unique, but it was not very practical and not how I’d pictured Jadis in the book. I think she should be more flamboyant with a colorful gown with feathers of rare birds, but queenly in a way, based on how she acted in London.
Hello, I don’t know if IMDB is reliable, but it says there that Narnia is already in production.
I agree with her that Magician’s Nephew is brilliant, and I’m very pleased we won’t have to suffer through another adaptation of Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe before getting on with the series!
@ victor
I assume that IMDB updated it to filming on July 1st since that’s the month a producer originally said they’d starting filming. I feel like we’d hear something from Netflix if filming had really started already.