The latest casting news for Greta Gerwig’s Chronicles of Narnia films at Netflix is centered around Meryl Streep. Streep is in talks to voice Aslan, the Great Lion. In the C.S. Lewis fantasy series, Aslan was a male, but Gerwig is changing things up for this adaptation.

What we know about the first film so far is that it will be released on “1,000 Imax screens worldwide on Thanksgiving Day 2026 and will not appear on Netflix until Christmas.” The only other casting news heard was that Gerwig was eyeing Grammy-winning artist Charli XCX for a key role in the film, but nothing was confirmed. Other details have been kept under wraps.

The Barbie director has previously described her take on the fantasy series:

“It’s connected to the folklore and fairy stories of England, but it’s a combination of different traditions. As a child, you accept the whole thing—that you’re in this land of Narnia, there’s fauns, and then Father Christmas shows up. It doesn’t even occur to you that it’s not schematic. I’m interested in embracing the paradox of the worlds that Lewis created, because that’s what’s so compelling about them.”

The Chronicles of Narnia book series follows children over the span of seven books of the history of the world of Narnia. There have been multiple adaptations, the most recent being the 2005 The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. That film had two sequels titled The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, and Voyage of the Dawn Treader. There were plans for subsequent films, but they were scrapped. It was announced in 2018 that Netflix had the rights to adapt the Lewis’ fantasy series and in 2023 that Gerwig would direct the adaptation.