First Look at Polly and Digory in Greta Gerwig’s Narnia Movie?
As Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew now begins filming in London, new photos and video have emerged via What’s On Netflix and UnBoxPHD on X.
In the newly-surfaced video, dozens of extras in 1950s garb walk beside a busy road, where a dark-haired boy carrying a satchel appears to be walking home from school. In another shot, the same boy in a different costume walks beside a curly-haired girl wearing a blue dress.
Is this our first glimpse of Digory and Polly?
Check out more snapshots at What’s On Netflix.
Netflix has yet to make any official casting announcements for Narnia, and so far, Emma Mackey and Carey Mulligan are the only confirmed castings.
It looks like the whole movie will be set in the 50s, if indeed these are Polly and Digory.
Those long white pelerine socks worn by the little girl walking away from the camera are not typical for the 1950s. Plain ankle socks were typical for girls in that decade.
Hmm, being set in 1955 wouldn’t ruin this story for me, but the rest of the chronicles being modern would be unfortunate. I still feel this is likely a framing device.
There’s so much to discuss on the time period! Talking Beasts pod soon please.
But on the characters… assuming these two are D&P, my first instinct is that Polly looks ‘wilder’ and as such may take more of a lead out of the two. She’s taller and less tidy (dress, hair, socks) than Digory. At first glance, he appears the more sullen of the two.
I’d love to know the context for their first interaction.
Unless these are just random extras, if I didn’t know better I would have said this looks more like Jill and Eustace. I wonder if they may use their time as a context for learning the story of The Magician’s Nephew, maybe from an older Polly or Professor Kirke, setting up the next adaptation as The Silver Chair. Seems like that could be complicated, but something like that makes more sense than to change the timing entirely.
@Lady Éowyn, I really, really like that idea (even if it’s not what they’re doing). Taking from “The Last Battle” and having older Digory telling his Narnia story…that would be unique. We’d need to get a move on though with either a refreshed Dawn Treader, Silver Chair, and Last Battle to match the age of the Eustace actor, though.
@ WhiteStag, those descriptions FIT nicely though with how the book progresses. Digory is sullen, Polly is excited and a bit reckless.
So exciting! I really hope they stay faithful to book. Either way I’m just so happy there’s a new Narnia movie coming! After 15 years too! I still remember watching VDT at the cinema. Can’t wait for the next Talking Beasts podcast, too!! I’m sure that Greta and the team are aware of how big this production is and the risks of changing stuff. With that in mind, I’m sure all major decisions like changing the time period would have been spoken about in depth, you never know though. Also hoping the music is as magical as the Walden ones. To me, the music was so special, it really made it feel like Narnia and honestly is one of the main reasons as to why I love Narnia so much. I’d be so excited if Harry Gregson-Williams came back to write the music!!
I’m kinda reassured, she is writing two films, so whatever significant alterations she makes won’t be left to someone else to fix, she’ll work on them herself and so she has a full picture when she makes adjustments when translating the books to screen knowing how the next adaptation will be affected
Really impressed they finally got to the leaks and managed to keep the young actors names private for their wellbeing.
If they are Digory and Polly, I don’t like them at all, especially her. She doesn’t look like Polly, she doesn’t look like a 12 year old girl. She looks 14. I already don’t like this if it’s true. I’m waiting for pictures of Emma Mackey and Carey Mulligan. And Daniel Craig, if he’s confirmed
Carey Mulligan too was confirmed. She’s Digory’s mom
I found this photo on a set video posted by feebzaquarius on Instagram. To me this is the most bizarre set photo I’ve seen, could this be Jadis with Digory (I think both characters are stunt doubles) – https://ibb.co/C3ghVHWJ
Is it just me, or is that vest the boy is wearing very similar to Eustace’s vest from Narnia 3?
This is very, VERY interesting. I’m not sure what to think about it. If they ARE Digory and Polly, I’m really glad to think that we might have our main cast ready, but they don’t look AT ALL like I imagined them. They look more like how I envisioned Eustace and Jill, though that’s not quite right either. I am looking forward to seeing their performance anyway (if they are more than just extras!). Good luck!
May I interject some possible reasons for what we are observing? What if the framing devices close to around 1950s frames the two characters of Eustice and Jill before introducing possibly flashbacks to introduce Digory and Polly? Well this will be interesting?
Can we think logically for a second? We’ve all assumed this is The Magician’s Nephew, but if the clothing is clearly 1950s, that doesn’t add up.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is set around 1942–1945 during WWII, with Professor Kirke about 50–60 years old. If Digory and Polly were kids in the 1950s, that timeline collapses.
There’s a lion on one of the posters in these new shots, maybe it’s C.S. Lewis woven into the narrative, maybe foreshadowing, but the boy here reads far more like a sullen Eustace Scrubb than Digory. In the books, Digory and Polly are roughly the same height, and we rarely see them outdoors together in the way these set photos show, unless Greta is taking significant liberties.
If she is reframing this as a post-war Polly and Digory, how would that make sense? And how would the second movie even start if the timeline is already shifted this far?
To me, this just doesn’t track with the books.
The first pic is odd. It looks like the girl is stood on the boys shoe. Are these genuine?
@ Lady Éowyn Yes about those kids looking like Eustace & Jill! If I wasn’t keeping up up with Narniaweb news, based on these photos I’d would have thought that they were making the beginning of The Silver Chair. Ha!
@ Linda Well, at least it looks like they’re casting English kids for English roles… so far. That weird casting call earlier this year – the one that called for a half-Indian British boy as one of the lead characters for this film – that alone implies some real fundamental changes to the books, as opposed to the kids just looking too tall for their roles. The Walden films had the latter issue. (Some of the kids were too old for their respective roles in all 3 movies.) But that was before selfish ideologies began to wreck perfectly fine film projects.
“Break the whole arc of the Narnia series”
Remember that phrase? I wouldn’t be surprised if this explains the confusing timeline.
Doesn’t TLB take place around 1950?
I think one thing is becoming increasingly clear: this is not simply a straightforward adaptation of TMN