Netflix’s New Plan for Greta Gerwig’s Narnia May Be a Huge Problem for Franchise

The puzzle has recently been finding its pieces for Greta Gerwig’s future adaptation of Narnia, though Netflix ’s plans might be way broader than the director’s.

The rumours about Gerwig being on board to helm a reimagining of the franchise has been circulating for months until the news finally confirmed that Barbie ’s writer-director will move on to a deal with Netflix, signing up for two movies.

However, there’s been a major update in the streamer’s plans in regard to Narnia, which Gerwig herself probably isn’t aware of, and now the upcoming movie series has got quite a big expansion.

Netflix Plans 8 Movies for Its Narnia Franchise

As the first movie went forward towards its production start, the company probably got a boost of confidence as it suddenly expanded the deal with Gerwig, and this isn’t just for one more movie.

According to IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond, Netflix sees lots of potential in the director’s work and plans a franchise that will ultimately comprise 8 movies.

“This was a really great movie [for us] because I think there are like eight movies planned … and what IMAX does best is launch franchises and launch events, [and] this is the kind of movie that is very conducive to an Imax release”, Gelfond said, also making it clear that Gerwig’s long-standing collaboration with Netflix is beneficial not for only the latter.

However, such a revelation remains unconfirmed as it’s not clear yet whether Gerwig did sign up for a much bigger series of films or refused to move further than just 2 movies planned for her directing.

Netflix’s Narnia Will Adapt Harry Potter ’s Scheme if It Continues With 8 Movies

The news caused some concern among the story’s fans who got perplexed whether Netflix’s ambitious decision would make sense after all.

The original book series written by C.S. Lewis comprises only 7 novels, while the previous Narnia franchise concluded after its third movie released back in 2010. Considering that Netflix now might make some shifts in the plot line to divide 7 books into 8 movies, it’s reasonable to suggest the streamer is likely to use one of the novels for two separate films, like the Harry Potter franchise did with The Deathly Hallows.

But the pattern may have worked better for Harry Potter than it will ever do for Narnia.

“First of all, with the exception of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, all the other books would work better as a series of 8-10 30-45min TV episodes rather than a movie. They are better thought of as a series of short stories than a long cohesive plot that has a primary rise in action and climax,” noted Redditor Additional-Sky-7436.

Meanwhile, the details about Gerwig’s work on the new version of the story remain under wraps; the first movie is now scheduled to be released sometime in 2026 on IMAX screens.