Greta Gerwig Says She’s “Properly Scared” To Tackle Netflix ‘Narnia’ Films, Addresses Prospect Of Directing A ‘Bond’ Pic
Greta Gerwig has for the first time addressed her plans to write and direct multiple films based on The Chronicles of Narnia books from C.S. Lewis, admitting that the prospect is fairly unnerving.
“I haven’t even really started wrapping my arms around it, but I’m properly scared of it, which feels like a good place to start,” Gerwig said in a recent appearance on the Total Film podcast. “I think when I’m scared, it’s always a good sign. Maybe when I stop being scared, it’ll be like, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t do that one.’
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“But yeah, no. I’m terrified of it,” continued Gerwig. “It’s extraordinary and it’s exciting.”
Gerwig went on to say that she hopes to make “all different kinds of movies” over the course of her career — “big things and small things and everywhere in between” — even if “having another big canvas” with Narnia is as “daunting” as it is exciting.
In her podcast appearance, Gerwig also addressed the prospect of her directing a film in the James Bond franchise, deflecting it for now. “Oh my God. We’re going to just stick with some lions and some dolls for the moment,” she said. “But you never know. I really like [Bond franchise producer] Barbara Broccoli, so…”
Also asked recently about the prospect of entering the world of Bond was Gerwig’s box office competitor Christopher Nolan, whose new film Oppenheimer is, like her latest effort Barbie, in theaters today. “The influence of those movies in my filmography is embarrassingly apparent. It would be an amazing privilege to do one,” the filmmaker said in an appearance on the podcast Happy Sad Confused. “At the same time, when you take on a character like that you’re working with a particular set of constraints.”
Continued Nolan, “It has to be the right moment in your creative life where you can express what you want to express and really burrow into something within the appropriate constraints because you would never want to take on something like that and do it wrong.”
While there have been whispers about Gerwig tackling Narnia for some time, the reality of it solidified in a recent profile of Gerwig and Barbie toymaker Mattel in The New Yorker. News of a Narnia project from Netflix had been awaited for some time, given the streamer’s inking of a multi-year deal for rights to the books back in 2018. The fantasy books tell the story of siblings coming of age during WWII who escape via a wardrobe to a magical realm known as Narnia, where they play a key role in fending off the advances of evil, and were previously adapted into three films from Disney and Fox, which collectively grossed over $1.58B worldwide.
Gerwig’s highly buzzy summer feature Barbie has Margot Robbie playing the iconic doll, with Ryan Gosling as her partner Ken, watching as the pair face an existential crisis when they leave the utopian Barbie Land for the real world. The Warner Bros pic has scored the best preview box office of the year to date, as we told you first, at a total of $22.3M.
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