Greta Gerwig’s ‘Narnia’ movie sparks backlash over Meryl Streep, Aslan casting

The controversy surrounding Greta Gerwig’s “The Chronicles of Narnia” adaptation.

Director Greta Gerwig’s upcoming adaptation of “The Chronicles of Narnia” has caused a stir with the latest casting news.

Reports from Deadline have indicated that Meryl Streep is in negotiations to voice Aslan in the film.

In C.S. Lewis’ novels, Aslan is a talking lion who serves as Narnia’s guardian. In the original “Narnia” movies, Aslan was voiced by Liam Neeson.

The news of Streep’s potential casting as Aslan has received a largely negative reaction from fans on social media.

“But Aslan is a male lion?” one fan questioned.

“Of course, we need a female Aslan. It would be crazy to just write a female character,” another person commented.

Another fan asked, “Why do they feel the need to gender-swap Aslan?”

Someone else tweeted, “Aslan is Jesus. Jesus was a man.”

“Aslan is literally a male lion. With all due respect to Meryl Streep’s acting abilities, there’s no conceivable reason to cast a female as Aslan unless it is to deliberately subvert C.S. Lewis,” read another tweet.

“@netflix this is nothing short of insane. It’s an assault on the fan base,” a different account wrote.

“Have you learned nothing from the Snow White disaster?” they added.

According to Deadline, Charli XCX is in talks for the role of Queen Jadis/the White Witch, originally played by Tilda Swinton. The outlet also mentioned that Daniel Craig has been offered a role in the film.

Gerwig, aged 41, has been chosen to direct two “Narnia” movies. The first is set to debut in IMAX theaters on Thanksgiving Day 2026 for two weeks before streaming on Netflix.

This film will be Gerwig’s first directorial feature since “Barbie,” which grossed over $1.4 billion globally in 2023.

Gerwig previously shared her vision for the beloved fantasy series.

“It’s connected to the folklore and fairy stories of England, but it’s a combination of different traditions,” she explained to Time last year. “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,” she added.

Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos told Time that Gerwig’s “Narnia” movies “won’t be counter to how the audience may have imagined those worlds, but they will be bigger and bolder than they thought.”

The original “Chronicles of Narnia” film trilogy was released between 2005 and 2010, with Andrew Adamson directing the first two movies and Michael Apted directing the third.