Posted in: Movies, Netflix | Tagged: greta gerwig, the chronicles of narnia

Netflix's The Chronicles Of Narnia Is Coming To IMAX Theaters

Greta Gerwig's adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia has secured a Christmas 2026 streaming release date and will be in IMAX theaters for two weeks starting Thanksgiving 2026.

Netflix is about to piss a whole bunch of their directors off with this news. As the streamer has courted larger and larger pools of talent, one of the things people have had to give up to get their projects off of the ground or to get a paycheck when working with Netflix is the fact that a theatrical release is probably not going to happen. It's the give and take of the system, but that system has been changing since the pandemic. When COVID-19 came along, everyone was confident that movie theaters were done and relics of the past, but box office grosses have proven that there is still a large and hungry audience of moviegoers eager to go to theaters. So streamers like Netflix, Amazon, and Apple have all had to figure out how to distribute their movies in theaters if they want to keep courting the best of the best. Late last month, a report came out saying that Greta Gerwig's adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia was targeting a December 2026 release date, and they were also pushing for some sort of IMAX release. It sounds like whatever hurdles everyone was hitting regarding that IMAX release have been cleared because initially reported by Puck but picked up by other trades like Variety, The Chronicles of Narnia is coming out in November 2026 in IMAX theaters and premiering on Netflix a month later on Christmas. The theatrical release will cover IMAX screens and will last for two weeks.

A couple of Netflix projects have had releases like this before, but the very small window has always felt like it did more harm than good. Why only two weeks? Why can't it stay in theaters up until the Netflix release? Granted, it's going to be pretty close considering a Thanksgiving release and a Christmas streaming release, but still, that gap could kill any momentum The Chronicles of Narnia might have. If Netflix is in this for the long haul, they have to hit the ground running if they want to get to the Last Battle before needing to recast its leads.

The Chronicles of Narnia And Adapting "Foundational" Pieces Of Media

Several book series are considered "foundational" when it comes to genres, and The Chronicles of Narnia is absolutely one of those book series. Between 2005 and 2010, three of the books were adapted to the big screen with pretty decent results. The books aren't massive the way that Dune is, so there wasn't a need to cut too much out, and they all have pretty definitive beginnings, middles, and endings, making them pretty ripe for adaptation. However, like all media involving children, the passage of time, delays, and dwindling box office returns got in the way of future movies.

Netflix acquired the rights to make more films and television series based on the books back in 2018, but it took quite a while for the streaming service to get anything off of the ground. Following the massive success of Barbie, it was pretty clear that director Greta Gerwig could do anything she wanted, but she signed on to do The Chronicles of Narnia for Netflix. The last we heard about the production, they wanted to start production in 2024, but unless that happened while no one was looking, that didn't quite happen. We also don't know how Netflix is planning to adapt these books either. Much like Harry Potter or Percy Jackson, when you're doing a franchise where your cast is children, you are on a very strict timetable, or things start to get weird regarding aging. See all the jokes about the final season of Stranger Things.

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