Academy Award Winning Creature Effects Artist Working on Narnia
NarniaWeb has learned that Academy Award-winning Creature Effects artist Neal Scanlan will be working on Greta Gerwig’s upcoming adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew at Netflix.
Scanlan is a veteran of the animatronics and practical effects industry, having worked at the legendary Jim Henson Creature Shop during the 1990s. He won an Academy Award for his work on Babe and has since earned four additional Oscar nominations for his work on the recent Star Wars films.
Scanlan is no stranger to Narnia, having worked on Paramount and director John Boorman’s abandoned adaptation in the mid-1990s during his time with the Jim Henson Company. His other recent credits include Prometheus, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
While the digital effects for Gerwig’s Narnia film will be handled by Framestore and other VFX houses, Scanlan and his team will focus on practical creature effects by bringing Narnia’s talking animals and mythological beings to life through animatronics, puppetry, and prosthetics.
The creature effects for the Walden Media Chronicles of Narnia films were provided by Howard Berger’s KNB EFX Group, which earned the series its lone Academy Award in 2006 for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Nice. I’m a big creature fan. I like animals living and extinct. And fantasy creatures and sci-fi creatures. So this will be the man who will do it well that’s going to be great.
Great news!
Practical effects for the win!
Nice – I wonder which creatures will be done practically. For the Waldon series, I think the Creature department did a lot of the Minotaurs, Cyclops, Centaurs, Silvans, and mythological creatures in general, but I do not think they did a lot of the talking animals (which were usually CGI) – correct me if I am wrong on that.
The Magician’s Nephew does have some mythological creatures at the creation, but I think most of the creatures mentioned are talking animals. I wonder if we may have animatronic moles, or something like that?
Good news at any rate! 🙂
I didn’t know the work on the 90s Narnia movie got that far into development! I thought it was basically abandoned after the script!
Hurrah, another update! This is good news. Again, I haven’t watched most of the movies he helped produce, but it sounds like he’s talented. I hope he does well! 🙂
Um, those sculptures in that picture with Neal Scanlan are from “The Golden Compass”, not the 90’s abandoned Narnia project. Get your facts right. Also, I am disgusted that they are clearly bringing back things from that abandoned 90’s Narnia project. This whole thing is going to be horrible.
Honestly, some of the best news about the production.
Great news! I’m really excited!
This guy’s a pro so I think he can do a good job. As long as they feel like Narnians and not space aliens I’ll be happy.
@Rosenquartz, the origin of that photo online quoted it as being from “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe’, however I have removed the offending caption for now whilst we look into it.
We need more details on the rejected Kathleen Kennedy Narnia movie! Super interesting to think of “what if” scenarios. Hopefully Scanlan does some interviews and people can ask him closer to when Netflix’s version comes out.
Absolutely brilliant hiring!