Willy Wonka in Narnia

Those of us who value The Narnia Chronicles have already read enough to be dubious about Netflix's upcoming 2027 version of The Magician's Nephew. It is entirely unnecessary to be a Christian believer to entertain that doubt. The production appears to have made many bad decisions, quite apart from messing with Aslan's gender. From The Telegraph, by someone obviously familiar with the books:

Uncle Andrew and Jadis

As anyone who has read the book will know, the Edwardian setting is crucial to its tone – self-consciously setting it before the First World War at a time England is still innocent and the horrors of the Somme have yet to rise out of some great hellish pit.

That prelapsarian quality is key to the story, which is essentially the origin tale of Professor Digory Kirke, the eccentric owner of the wardrobe which grants access to Narnia in later books. The Magician’s Nephew is in its essence a book set Before The Fall. At the start of the story, the wicked Jadis is trapped in suspended animation in a post-apocalyptic alternative dimension, Narnia has yet to be created by Aslan and Britain is looking forward to a century of peace. But then two children – Digory and his friend Polly – muddle around and everything changes utterly. Jadis is unleashed, evil is free and tranquility is shattered – literally so, when the future ruler of Narnia runs amok in London in scenes that have the quality of a steampunk Grand Theft Auto.

That is in contrast to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which unfolds against the background of the Blitz and where readers can infer that the children are quietly traumatised by the horror of war – one reason why they leap so readily into the great unknown of the wardrobe. But if you shunt The Magician’s Nephew forward to the post-war austerity of the 1950s, then that dynamic is changed utterly: the calm-before-the-storm aspect of the Edwardian period is missing.

If Jadis is the monster in this story, then the part of pathetic villain is played by Digory’s eccentric Uncle Andrew, a self-involved boffin who tricks Polly into disappearing into another dimension by having her touch a magic ring – then blackmails Digory into setting off to rescue her. The “Magician” in The Magician’s Nephew, as written by Lewis, has few redeeming features. Yet in Gerwig’s film he’s played by the charming Daniel Craig; judging by new images, he will be a lovable boffin, a sort of Willy Wonka of the Lewis-verse. .... (more)

Ed Power, "Netflix’s $280m ‘rock opera’ Narnia film is even madder than it sounds," The Telegraph, Sept. 20, 2026.