Why Greta Gerwig's Narnia Movie Starting With The Magician's Nephew Is A Brilliant Decision

Published Oct 20, 2026, 9:00 PM EDT

Sky Blanton is a Movie Contributor at ScreenRant with professional experience covering movies, television, and pop culture. Her published work spans news, interviews, features, and opinion pieces, with a focus on film, franchise storytelling, and the entertainment industry.

She earned her bachelor's degree in Communications with a concentration in Professional Writing and a minor in Business Writing from Southern New Hampshire University.

Lucy pushed past fur coats into a snow-covered forest in the 2005 Narnia movie, The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe. Beneath a lamppost stood Mr. Tumnus, so startled by her arrival that he dropped his parcels. His flustered introduction made a faun seem approachable enough to follow home for tea. The film let Lucy discover this strange place through someone who lived there. Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of C.S. Lewis' novel will take its children somewhere even Lucy never saw, a world that has yet to grow its first tree.

In Lewis’ novel, London neighbors Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer encounter magic through Digory’s uncle Andrew, who tricks Polly into touching a ring that sends her out of their world. Digory follows to rescue her. Their travels take them to a deserted palace, where he ignores Polly’s objections and rings a bell that awakens its dangerous queen. Digory gets to see a world being born, then has to explain why he’s brought someone so dangerous into it.

Gerwig’s film is based on The Magician’s Nephew, the sixth Narnia book published but the first in Narnia's chronological book order. The earlier films never adapted it, giving her a beginning beyond Lucy’s footsteps. If the series later reaches the White Witch’s frozen kingdom, audiences could remember the same world alive and growing, making her rule feel like a loss.

Starting here reveals some explanations Lewis saved for later, but it also gives a return to the wardrobe something a straightforward remake wouldn’t have. Lucy would be discovering a world the audience has already had time to get to know.

The Magician's Nephew Is The Perfect Starting Point For Greta Gerwig's Narnia Franchise

Gerwig’s source puts a boy’s fear for his mother alongside Narnia’s creation. In Lewis’ novel, Digory has watched Aslan create living things, but his mother is still dying at home. He asks for something to cure her and looks up to find tears in the lion’s eyes. Aslan’s grief surprises him. Here is someone who understands how frightened he is, even before promising any help.

Having brought Jadis, the future White Witch, into Narnia, Digory is sent to fetch an apple that will grow into a tree protecting it from her. In the garden, she urges him to take it home to his mother instead. He has a cure within reach and a promise that keeps him from using it. Jadis doesn’t need to frighten him into obeying her. She only has to remind him who is waiting at home. His attachment to Narnia is new; his love for his mother isn’t.

Digory brings the apple back, and Aslan later gives him fruit from the new tree to cure her. His mother’s recovery could bring the film back to what Digory wanted before he knew Narnia existed. Digory gets to go home knowing his mother will live. Narnia can wait for another visit without leaving his story unfinished.

Starting With Book 6 Means Narnia Can Avoid Repeating The Original Movies

In Lewis’ novel, Digory and Polly reach Narnia's Wood Between the Worlds, where pools beneath the trees lead to separate worlds. One takes them to Charn, a deserted city under a red sun whose queen killed everyone rather than surrender. Neither place appeared in the earlier trilogy. Knowing Lucy’s journey through the snowy forest wouldn’t tell a viewer what waits beneath those pools.

Even the lamppost Lucy discovers in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has an origin story here. Jadis tears a bar from a London lamppost and throws it at Aslan. On Narnia’s soil, it grows into another lamppost. Finding it still burning in the snow could make the years between the two adventures feel real, with that small piece of Digory’s visit surviving into Lucy’s.

Professor Kirke’s childhood in Narnia connects Digory to the man who sheltered Lucy and her siblings during World War II. When Peter and Susan doubt her account of Narnia, he takes it seriously. By introducing Digory as a boy, Gerwig could give a later film more to do with him than explain why he believes Lucy. She had just visited a place he hasn’t seen in decades. Listening to her could be the closest he gets to going back.