First Look at Netflix’s ‘Narnia’ Set as Filming Begins
Filming on Greta Gerwig’s ‘The Magician’s Nephew’ adaptation finally got underway in London this morning, with scenes being shot on public roads in the City of London near Cornhill and the Royal Exchange.
The set appears to depict a 1950’s street scene in a post-war reconstruction-era Britain, the highlight of which is a giant billboard for a new housing development, featuring a magnificent golden-maned Lion.
This confirms our reporting from yesterday that multiple scenes within the movie will be set in the 1950s, rather than entirely in 1900 as per the book. Note however that it is still unconfirmed whether this represents a time shift for the entire story, or simply the addition of a framing device corresponding to year in which The Magician’s Nephew was published (1955).
The rest of the street scene features various items of street furniture appropriate to the 1950s, as well as Taxis, Cars and Buses of that era.
The following photos were all taken by the Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations. See if you can spot the Greta Gerwig Easter Egg hidden in the set details!
Countless other photos of the set can also be found online, including from Reddit Poster BusyBisi and Instagram user ktitone.
With filming on Narnia now officially underway, be sure to keep a keen eye on NarniaWeb for all the latest Narnia movie news as it happens.
ChatGPT says the poster belongs in 1908-1912, for whatever that’s worth.
Maybe the end of the film, with characters gazing on a mural of a lion very reminiscent of Aslan, Hey a lil cliche, but it’s all in execution
But you might also wanna lean into some of the kookiness idk
It might also be the second unit production idk, but to all the Lion mane lovers hope u can finally take a breath
YESS!!!! super excited
@Benji
Good observation
Wow!!
ChatGPT would be wrong as there’s a poster with a 1955 date 😉
Same year MN was published… Hmmm!
I wonder if the story won’t be narrated by C.S. Lewis? I’ve been thinking about that.
LOVING THE MANE! TEARS IN MY EYES. HOPEFUL
@Rilian If you mean the poster with the lion, the outfits of the silhouetted people on it are definitely not wearing clothing from 1908-1912. They could possibly be as early as the 1930s, but the whole aesthetic of the poster is very 1950s. I wouldn’t trust ChatGPT to understand details like that. 🙂
The time period is 100% the 1950s based on the cars and extras, etc. and highly likely 1955 based on some of the set decoration details.
There’s loads.of other photos on Instagram if you browse by location.
Why don’t they can keep to the book as it is described, is that so difficult? Already destroying Christian literature
I’m thrilled that filming has finally begun. However, I’m unsure about the potential direction Gerwig has chosen. Of course, we still don’t know anything, but here are my suggestions: 1) The narrator, as well as one of the film’s characters, is C.S. Lewis. The action begins in the 1950s, and Lewis recounts about Narnia in London as he passes through the streets of the 1950s. The plot is interrupted by the narrator’s digressions. If this is true, I think it’s a very poor form of film narrative. This type of device works in the book, but poorly in film, as exemplified by the 1967 Narnia TV series. There, the main plot was interrupted by the Professor’s digressions, which detracted from the atmosphere and action of the series. However, this was due to the series’ limited budget. Option 2) Digory and Polly, during their journey between the worlds, find themselves in 1950s England—but England from Lewis’s reality. We experience the breaking of the fourth wall—a meeting between Digory and Lewis. Digory recounts his adventures and his sick mother, and Lewis recalls him mother’s death. Digory inspires Lewis to write the book. Although this is an intriguing solution, I feel it interferes too much with the content and meaning of Lewis’s books – which England is the real England, and whether each of these worlds is therefore a replica of the real world in Aslan’s Country, or whether everything is an illusion in which fiction cannot be separated from reality? In Lewis’s work, everything has its consequences in terms of narrative, symbolism, and Christianity. I fear that such a development unnecessarily complicates the film’s structure.
Option 3) Moving the action from the early 20th century to the 1950s – this decision essentially discredits this film. Modernizing the setting is, for me, one of the most disastrous solutions.
Currently, I have more doubts than hopes, but I still believe in this film. Hoever the start of filming is exciting – we’ve been waiting for this news for 15 years. Time will tell what will happen.
I’m really excited! It’s so great to get news like this. Here’s to hoping they won’t bungle the story.
Has it really been 16 years since the last Narnia movie started filming? I have some doubts about this new film but I can’t help feeling excited, plus Greta hasn’t made a bad movie yet. Only about 15 months to go!
At least the lion in the poster looks very masculine.
Stay away from AI chat bots. What do they know?
I always use ‘web’ when Searching online.
I’ve already commented elsewhere that I thought 6d was expensive for a bunch of flowers, but then they are selling to richer people in the City Of London (the square mile that is the old city, not the West End and Theatre part).
@Bartek – good comments, your conclusions are sound!
I know everyone so far who has commented based on the information possibly believe the whole movie might be based on 1950s but what if it is not. Let me explain. In Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, she introduce the movie by using a meta reference of the book to begin and also end the movie. What if the 1950s is an intro title where it slowly transition like a reverse timelapse, what I mean is like we often see a time lapse of nature on social media like growing and dying of a plant for instance, so what if these props are more like a random zoom ins that are 1950s hinting of the movie context as it slowly reverse time lapse to the main plot 1900-1910s of the movie where the pieces will be filled in. As mentioned, it is possible there will be an unknown voiceover that will narrate the beginning before revealing at the end which the end might go back to the 1950s setting we were introduce with.
A couple of possibility in the beginning of the movie set in the intro where 1950s props and people are shown where random zoom in and out of things like the poster of Aslan and the year before transitions to a scene of 40 boys playing / swimming in the pool where the pool allude to further context in the movie prior to transition to a further context in the movie. There could be music and possible voiceover .
I feel this 1950s is a framing device to this film.
I’ve no idea what to make of this. It could be a framing device, but surely all the Friends of Narnia would be dead by 1955?
I think this news shows us that the film is not an adaptation of MN but an interpretation of Narnia that may feature some ideas/characters from the book.
I’m sorry but I am disappointed; I really just wanted to see seven “purist” films that stuck to the book, instead of reimagining them.
1950s marks the beginning of the Space Race and Britain’s own rocket programs. Maybe Greta is going to connect Narnia with the Ransom Trilogy.
That’d be fun.
Yeah those posters look way later than the 1910’s. ChatGPT is not a reliable source.
Hopefully this is still part of a bookend scene rather than the actual setting. I’d MUCH rather they stuck with the books on this…
I like the idea of a reverse timelapse intro!
I’m really struck by the optimistic slogan on the poster. I may or may not agree with all Gerwig’s instincts but her films are always laboured over and deeply layered. Setting (or framing) the magician’s nephew in the post atomic fifties is a really intriguing idea. I always felt that Lewis was maybe referring to the bomb when Aslan talks to Digory about the deplorable word at the end of the book. Somehow the utopian/edenic optimism of the late fifties, the post atomic world, charn and the white witch seeking a new world to dominate, all seem like elements that I can imagine Gerwig wanting to play with. Thoughts?
I just wanted to note that one of the comments about the filming under the Reddit post by Busybisi linked to above states that there were “lots of 1940s cars and extras in costume,” and another comment states that “I just cycled through threadneedle street.. was mad, crowds of people all dressed like it’s the blitz.” These posts suggest to me that the scenes being filmed might be of the time of the blitz in the 1940s during World War II rather than from the early to mid 1950s.
Ok, so logical mind here…
The time diffrence between the magician’s nephew and the last battle was about 50 years….
I’m sure they have stated they would be working on multiple series at the same time.
From a narrative prespecrive, starting with a character who retells the stories from the end, either leading to the start of the last battle, or aftermath could be intresting. If I recall correctly Susan was absent from the last battle & chose to stay in our world? What if she is telling her children the stories of Narina & or their family who is no longer around?
It seems plausible that the film will open with CS Lewis publishing MN, with he and his publisher discussing how Narnia came to be, and will then rewind to tell the story. Im excited to see what Greta Gerwig will do here. She is extremely talented, let’s not forget.
Elliot Macnab may be Susan’s husband?
I can confirm THE WHOLE FILM takes place in 1955
Myself and other supporting artists have been receiving multiple enquiries for 1950’s scenes
I just had a horrifying thought. If this film does happen to take place in the 1950s, then when Digory ages to the time that LWW would take place, it very well could be modern times. I really hope that’s not what they’re doing. I dont need to see Edmund as a YouTube prankster.
Some video footage of the filming was posted on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/0cuTP5MRtw0?si=vBWzNWgEXdztV3oI
I think everyone is forgetting that all the Pevensies (except Susan), Eustace, Jill, Digory, Polly, and even the Pevensie’s parents, all died before the fifties even started… that means all the theories revolving around characters doing things in the fifties are ridiculous. Greta was an awful choice for director from the start, but what else can you expect from someone who butchered Barbie to a woke agenda instead of understanding the characters of Barbie and Ken…
The set itself looks great. But a 50s setting? It just feels hubristic. We were excited about Gerwig because she’s a capable director—but only insofar as she supported the material well. The core audience for this movie loves Narnia much, much more than they love Gerwig. We weren’t asking for anyone’s too-clever take on Narnia. We just wanted Narnia.
I have waited so long for,an adaption of The Magicians Nephew. I will be devastated if she has changed it to the 1950s. How can you set Jadus on the top of a handsome cab charging through the streets of London in the 1950s. I hope this is just the setting for Digory remembering how it all began.
What about the movie starting with the friends of Narnia meeting up to discuss Narnia as in Last Battle? They themselves could reminisce about the good old times. Or even talk about what they would need to go to Narnia by using the rings. Digory then telling the story?? Yes, that should have been around 1949 and not 1955 but this gap is more permissible…
A 1950’s setting for MN means that we will likely see the LWW set in the 2000’s 🙁
I’d be down for an adaptation of LWW set in 1990’s. MN in the 50’s sounds fun, too. Could be creative ways to appeal to new audiences and explore themes through more recent nostalgia.
If Magicians Nephew is being updated from the 1900’s to the 1950’s, then (in my mind) there is only one real explanation as to why this is being done: Not only is the time jump going to use 1950’s fears of nuclear war as a not-so-subtle metaphor for what Jadis did to Charn, but the rest of the series will take place in modern times, likely in the 2000’s during the War on Terror and the conflict in the Middle East, drawing not-so-subtle metaphors to real-life modern conflicts in the coming tales. Sigh. I don’t like this change at all. But I can see why a modern screenwriter would think to change the Narnia stories this way – especially a screenwriter who both lacks and misreads the genius of Lewis’ imagination. It was bound to happen.
That’s possible about the 50s fear of nuclear war to refer to what Jadis did to Charn (the Deplorable Word) as a reason for why Greta has changed the timeline. Or, it could simply be because it was a lot cheaper to make everything seem like it was 1950 instead of the 1800s, as that would require a lot more money/work to get the props and such, and I imagine the movie has a budget, and it also needs to set the scenes for Narnia… etc.
Well, since the books were mostly set in Narnia/Charn, I don’t suppose it’ll make much difference what era the real world is set in, though, I was hoping that for its first ever adaptation, the MN would be true to its story.
But, the one thing I can’t stand is the thought of making Aslan a lioness! I’ve always thought of Aslan as a fatherly type figure with a strong and powerful manly voice, and I love lions’ manes, which lionesses obviously do not have. Heck, the books mention Aslan’s mane several times as being beautiful and golden that the characters loved to touch… etc. Seriously, what is Greta thinking???!
It does appear that we have to give up hope of a pure/faithful adaptation of the books. What makes anyone think TMN needs changing? Fans want to see it exactly as we read and fell in love with.
A time shift? I seem to remember another book adaption that tried that. Amazons the wheel of time and it was terrible. My guess is they haven’t gotten away from the slant of Hollywood and it will be some contrived mess. No thanks.
What if Meryl Streep is playing Polly as an adult?
Well, all the news I’ve read so far seems to confirm that she is playing Aslan (worst luck). So, unless it’s one of those fake news that some studios try to make a surprise for us in the movie, I think we’re out of luck.