Italian Town Wants to Host Narnia Premiere
A recent report from an Italian news outlet claims that Narni, Italy is pursuing a relationship with Netflix to connect their town with the upcoming adaptations of C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia.
According to Lewis’s biographer, Narni is the inspiration behind the name of the country beyond the wardrobe. Lewis had underlined the name of the town on a map of ancient Italy because he liked the way it sounded.
A local town councillor, Lorenzo Lucarelli, has been at the forefront of the push since Netflix first acquired the rights in 2018.
“The idea is to connect our territory to the worldwide-famous series,” Lucarelli said in a statement (via Umbria24). “Our aim is to get back in touch with Netflix… it seems we are on the right track.”
Lucarelli went on to express his desire to host a Narnia premiere or even filming in the region. He hinted there could be some news soon. NarniaWeb keep an eye on this story as it develops. Here’s everything we know about Netflix’s Narnia.
Thanks to Bartek and Arianna for helping with translation and interpretation!
Finally some news! I was aware the town existed but had no idea Lewis was directly inspired by it.
Hoping the deal works out! The gate there looks like it could work in a scene or two.
Curious if this’ll provoke an explosion of fan theories about the filming possibilities…
Ooh yes, I was just thinking, going by that photo, Narni itself could be used in filming a few scenes…
As of now, we don’t actually know what the level of interest is from Netflix — or that the conversation has gone very far.
I think they want to promote their town for tourism reasons. Well, they’ve already been successful for Narniawebbers. The town is much more in our minds now.
I wonder if Lewis visited there.
I always imagined that it is a tiny town.
Personally I think that Netflix won’t be that interested. Because they are huge and would have their own ideas.
But then again, maybe the marketing/ locations teams for the Narnia production are smaller and more open to this kind if idea.
The only problem with that idea is that this is Netflix and unless it’s prestige Oscar-bait, they’re not going to have an theatrical screenings (or DVD releases), which sucks. And if they do screenings, it’ll only be at theaters they own, such as the Egyptian Theatre in LA (though that’s closed for renovations until next year). Only those willing and able to have Netflix or manage to find it online will be able to see it.
The article did not mention the name of “Lewis’s biographer”. There are a lot of biographies, not all of them accurate or approved. I wonder which one they referred to.
The link with the town of Narni has always been uncertain.
The one I recommend is ‘Jack’ by George Sayer.
It’s not a bad idea to film some scenes in a town that apparently inspired Lewis to create Narnia. However, I would like any new film or TV series to be mostly filmed in the U.K. That landscape and location would be the most like the real Narnia to me. 🙂
The picture almost looks like it could be from Beruna or Anvard. That would be so much fun! I hope Netflix works with the town.
Walter Hooper, Lewis’s personal secretary, gave the account of Narnia’s name origin.
I’d be very surprised if anything came of this, but it’s a fun story!
‘Adaptations of C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia’ has the hackles up. I hope they are going to do ALL the books and follow them faithfully instead of doing their own interpretation of the usual four. With the technology they have today they should be able to do them all.
Love the idea that they are going to do all the books,no short cuts please ,keep true to the original books ,hope they do a fab job like Lord of the rings and take the time so they last forever,maybe Aslan is on the move ! this time.
I’ve been to Narni, it is a lovely town and would be a nice location for any fantasy shoot, although it is quite small.
Very interesting, I hope it all works out!
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It looks like it could have been in the PC film. The style is very similar.
It would be kind of cool if they started over with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe but this time set in the modern day. That is the way C.S. Lewis did it. At the time he wrote the chronicles of Narnia the Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe it pretty much was set in 1940 which was less than ten years before he started writing it.
I knew that random bit of trivia about Narni (apparently it actually was called Narnia in Roman times) but I had never thought of them using that. What a cool idea!
On a side note, I think I’ve seen this picture before; the other day, I thought my brother had texted it to me; then he said I texted it to him (must have been a Siri glitch, cuz we do talk about Narnia sometimes). That or a hilarious good sign for the town lol
PS: Can I just echo what others have said, “FINALLY some news!” 🙂