Grammy-winning artist Charli XCX could join Netflix and Greta Gerwig’s Narnia movie in a key role for the upcoming fantasy film.
If Charli XCX joins the cast of Greta Gerwig’s Narnia movie, the Pevensie family could find a pile of panties in their wardrobe. According to Deadline, Gerwig is eyeing the Grammy-winning artist for her upcoming film based on The Chronicles of Narnia on Netflix. The outlet says Charli XCX is in the running for a key role, though details remain a mystery.
Whispers about Charli XCX possibly joining the Narnia cast arrive after hearing she’ll co-headline Saturday’s portion of this year’s Glastonbury Festival alongside Neil Young and Chrome Hearts, Doechii, Deftones, Beth Gibbons, Amyl and the Sniffers, Beabadoobee, Caribou, and many more. While Charli XCX’s potential Narnia role remains unknown, Deadline suggests she could play Jadis, The White Witch.
According to Jason Isaacs, Greta Gerwig’s Narnia movie is an adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew, a prequel to the original tale. “I loved all the Narnia books as a kid,” the actor said in January. “When Peter was told he wouldn’t be coming back, I understood something devastating about mortality. I picked this one because Greta Gerwig is about to make a film of it, which I can’t wait to see.”
Netflix acquired the rights to C.S. Lewis’ series of Narnia novels way back in 2018. There are seven novels in the series: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, The Horse and His Boy, The Magician’s Nephew, and The Last Battle. The first four books have received multiple television adaptations over the decades since they were published in the 1950s. Walden Media made two big-screen adaptations with Disney. The first, Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, was an enormous hit in 2005, grossing over $745 million worldwide, but the 2008 sequel, Prince Caspian, made significantly less, $419 million. So Walden Media had to go to Fox to get a third movie made, 2010’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. That one made about as much as Prince Caspian.
If Gerwig is indeed making The Magician’s Nephew, the description of the book’s story reads: “Narnia… a land frozen in eternal winter… a country waiting to be set free. On a daring quest to save a life, two friends are hurled into another world, where an evil sorceress seeks to enslave them. But then the lion Aslan’s song weaves itself into the fabric of a new land, a land that will be known as Narnia. And in Narnia, all things are possible.”
Charli XCX appears in several upcoming film projects, including Cathy Yan’s The Gallerist, Daniel Goldhaber’s adaptation of Faces of Death, Romain Gavras’s action-adventure comedy Sacrifice, and more.
If Greta Gerwig wants to separate her Narnia film from previous releases, casting Charli XCX is a good start. While the deal is not done, seeing how this plays out will be interesting.
