Why ‘BBC Narnia’ Never Adapted The Last Battle: Director and Cast Speak Out in New Documentary

The BBC considered ending its Chronicles of Narnia television series with an adaptation of The Last Battle, according to a brand-new retrospective documentary, Return to Narnia, released as part of a Blu-ray remaster of the original 1988 to 1990 series. The classic series adapted the first four Narnia books across three six-part productions.

Director Alex Kirby, who helmed the amalgamated Prince Caspian / The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, as well as The Silver Chair, revealed that he and producer Paul Stone had conversations about the possibility of adapting The Last Battle. However, the scale and ambition of the story quickly made it clear that it would be unachievable for the BBC at the time.

Paul Stone and I had a conversation about ‘The Last Battle’. I read it very carefully and it was just a step too far. It’s extreme fantasy.

Alex Kirby

Kirby went on to share that they quickly turned their attention towards another classic of children’s fantasy literature:

… and then Paul did go off to see Christopher Tolkien with a view to doing ‘The Hobbit’, and he met Christopher Tolkien in the south of France, and was quite astounded because Christopher had no television set, wasn’t aware of anything that the BBC… even existed! So wasn’t at all interested in letting ‘The Hobbit’ go. But it’s a shame really, because I think we could have done ‘The Hobbit’ justice.

Alex Kirby

Although development on a concluding adaptation of The Last Battle likely never progressed past those initial discussions, the cast of the show seemed well aware of the potential for a fourth series, which would have seen all four Pevensie siblings reunited. Their reactions in Return to Narnia however suggest mixed feelings:

Richard Dempsey (Peter): There was talk at one stage, wasn’t there, about them doing ‘The Last Battle’

Sophie Cook (Susan): There was yeah!

Johnathan Scott (Edmund): …and we all come back together.

Sophie Wilcox (Lucy): … I’m quite pleased we didn’t do that.

Richard Dempsey (Peter): Well we would have been quite old!

Sophie Wilcox (Lucy): Well exactly! […] Like I was 15 at the end. I kind of feel like, you know, we needed to go and be teenagers.

However, David Thwaites, who played Eustace in both Dawn Treader and Silver Chair, and is now a successful film producer in Hollywood, expressed a degree of sadness that The Last Battle never got made:

It was a great experience and it was sad that it was ending, because it didn’t feel to me like it was realistic that ‘The Last Battle’ was going to be made.

David Thwaites (Eustace)

For more stories from behind the scenes of Narnia adaptations, listen to our interview with ‘Caspian’ actors Samuel West and Ben Barnes.

Would you have liked to see the BBC attempt an adaptation of The Last Battle, or was director Alex Kirby right that it would have been “a step too far”?