Director Greta Gerwig had many doors opened to her when her blockbuster hit Barbie skyrocketed to box office glory. One of those doors was to a wardrobe in “the land of Spare Oom,” leading to a retelling of the classic C.S. Lewis novel series, The Chronicles of Narnia.
While the production is being backed by Netflix, the streamer is aware of the big screen appeal of the epic tales, and though they have moved away from pairing their films with theatrical releases, they support Gerwig’s negotiations with IMAX to bring the movie(s) to the biggest screen available.
There hasn’t been much word on the film’s progress in the last year, just that it has been slowly moving forward, but now we have word of a release window.
In a recent report from Bloomberg, they gave the scoop that “Netflix is targeting a December 2026 release for The Chronicles of Narnia movie from Greta Gerwig. Negotiations for a theatrical release with Imax and Gerwig continue. Everyone wants to do it. Netflix is still figuring out the best way to explain the move to other filmmakers; it doesn’t want this to be seen as a precedent.”
It went on to say that “Imax is only for a certain kind of film. Most Netflix movies would never get an Imax release. (There’s no reason the company couldn’t use the Imax for its quarterly tentpole, but the streaming service still has no interest in theaters.)”
So, in short, Netflix is happy to bank on a family-friendly familiar franchise that is likely to rake in the big bucks, but they don’t want other filmmakers getting any ideas about theatrical releases. Got it.
It’s cool to know that the next two holiday seasons will have some great movies to look forward to though! Wicked: For Good will hit theatres November 21, 2025, and The Chronicles of Narnia will kick off in December 2026.
