Today marks the 71st anniversary of C.S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew and Netflix is celebrating the occasion with the first signs of a marketing rollout for its upcoming Narnia adaptations (following yesterday’s news of a release-date shakeup).
Members of the NarniaWeb team received packages containing a copy of the book, along with a gift and a note “from the desk of Greta Gerwig.” This is the the first time the Writer/Director has officially acknowledged The Magician’s Nephew as the source material:
I was a child when I first read The Magician’s Nephew, and I fell in love with the gorgeously improbable but completely brilliant concept of a cosmic lion singing the world of Narnia to Life. I didn’t know I would grow up to make films, but a universe built out of music is an idea that always lived in my heart. It is the honor of a lifetime to be asked to imagine it into being.
Because of C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, I believed in magic and hidden worlds and adventure. I believed that anywhere could be enchanted and that anyone could be swept up into an epic. That wonder and awe were available to everyone, even ordinary people like me.
I hope this book transforms you as it transformed me. I have also enclosed a special keepsake from the set of the film we just shot in London. I cannot wait to bring the whole movie to you, but for now, I wanted you to be able to hold a piece of Narnia.”
With love, Greta Gerwig
That keepsake was a custom pyrography bookmark made from wood sourced from one of the film’s sets in London, engraved with an image of the Tree of Youth with the quote: “Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, Awake” below. According to the accompanying note, only 250 copies were produced.
But the box itself might warrant closer inspection. Could this be the box in which Uncle Andrew discovers the Atlantean dust? Or perhaps this is something from Charn? Post your speculations below!
Thank you, Netflix, for the gift commemorating the anniversary of this wonderful story that has impacted so many people for generations.