Narnia: The Magician's Nephew wraps production

[Specter]

Well, that's that! Principal photography has ended on Greta Gerwig's Narnia: The Magician's Nephew. I'll be posting about it on the site soon, but I wanted to share it here.

Next up: Post-Production!

Special Effects
Looping
Editing
Sound
Color Correction
Music and Scoring
Reshoots (normal to do, as when they're editing, they may need an additional shot of something, or a reaction, or an additional bit of dialog to help make something more clear)
Test Screenings

Also:

Marketing will begin, including:
Cast announcements
Teasers, Trailers, Commercials
Posters

I am looking forward to seeing what they come up with. It might be a trainwreck, and it might be brilliant. I have said this before, but it bears repeating: I don't judge a film like this until I see the credits rolling. I am going to give it the benefit of the doubt. And when I do consider it, I will do it from two perspectives. 1. As an Adaptation, and 2. In a vacuum (if there was no book, and it was original). I tend to start with the "vacuum" view, so I can get my honest reaction as if I were a member of the audience who had never read the Narnia books. Hard to do, but I have done it with each of the films, because my first exposure to Narnia was the animated version, not the book. And then I look at it through the window of the book. That's always hard because very few movies that I have seen have measured up. Some, I consider equals (The Lord of the Rings, The Princess Bride). Some I consider the film to be better (Big Fish, The NeverEnding Story). So we'll see how this goes.

 

[MrBob]

Interesting. I will not be able to see it, not having a Netflix account and all, but while I hope it is good, I do have my concerns. I am like you, Specter in that I do evaluate movies based on books I have read in two ways. As a standalone movie and as an adaptation. I do disagree with you that "The Neverending Story" was a better movie. The book was far superior, especially as the first movie took place only in the first half of the book. I do love the theme song, though.

 

[Specter]

Have you ever watched two movies back-to-back that were both of the same genre, only to have the first one be so good that the second one, as good as it was, is dimmed by the first movie? I once saw Dodgeball and Shrek 2 at a drive-in with a bunch of friends. We watched Dodgeball, and then moved over to the screen that was showing Shrek 2, and it was very funny... but we later found it was funnier by itself than it was right after watching Dodgeball.

Well... when I started reading The NeverEnding Story book, I had just finished reading The Lord of the Rings. After the beautiful and eloquent writing of Tolkien, the English translation of The NeverEnding Story felt so dry. I found myself wishing that Tolkien could re-translate the German and write it in his style. It was a true chore. I wound up getting about half-way though, the the Desert of Many Colors, and going no further. I needed to read something else and never found my way back. I have heard from someone that the German version is beautiful, if you know the language. I just grew up watching the movie before I ever knew it was a book.

I understand the disagreement, that's okay with me. I just like the movie better because of these reasons.

 

[MrBob]

I understand how you could compare the two books. I'm not saying The Neverending Story is a classic comparable to Tolkein's works, especially as it was translated, in my version, by someone named Ralph Manheim. I wonder how well English language books translate well into other languages while keeping the same pacing and beauty.

Now for me, I actually watched both The Neverending Story and LWW movies before I read the books. I really enjoyed both immensely but the books that I read afterward were still superior. However, I read the whole of the Narnia Series before watching the latter two movies in the series and the knowledge of the books did affect my appreciation of the movies as well as the BBC series.

Regarding this Netflix production, why haven't they already announced the cast? We've heard rumors but why not make an announcement before production or during the actual filming?

 

[Specter]

Yeah, it's pretty interesting how reading a book before or after an adaptation can alter your perception of the adaptation. I wonder how much that applies to a book written based on a screenplay. Two examples I know of: Hook by Terry Brooks (which includes deleted scenes), and John Carter, which is based on the screenplay of the film John Carter, and was published as a two-for-one book, where you got the book based on the film, and the original book that the film is based on. A very unique concept that, honestly, would be cool to see from other adaptations.

As to the casting, they were holding off on cast announcements because they have a marketing plan that includes the announcements, based on their previous track record.

All of their films have cast announcements, but have you ever known what came first, the casting announcement or filming? I never did before, but I realized that's because I've never followed a production of theirs apart from Stranger Things and Cobra Kai, and both of those were different situations. I have spoken to someone who told me a few months ago not to expect any announcements until 2026, also.