Greta Gerwig, now set to adapt two Narnia movies, was surprised to be accused of selling out
Greta Gerwig wants to be a "big studio director," even if it means cashing in on the I.P. era of cinema
Aux News Greta Gerwig
We’re at a critical juncture in cinema where the industry has to figure out how it’s going to survive, and right now the answer looks like superheroes and stuff. Emerging filmmakers tend to be snapped up into the Marvel machine or are otherwise drawn into adapting existing I.P. (intellectual property), and some of that IP doubles as commercials for products. Take Greta Gerwig: she may not have done a superhero extravaganza, but she went from a critically acclaimed original directorial debut (Lady Bird) to Little Women to Barbie to, soon, The Chronicles Of Narnia.
Yes, The New Yorker has confirmed that Gerwig will write and direct at least two Narnia films for Netflix. That kind of franchise filmmaking couldn’t be further from Gerwig’s indie roots (Frances Ha, Mistress America), which is perhaps why some online denizens have accused her of selling out. Per The New Yorker, Gerwig “was caught off guard” that people should make this complaint about her work on Barbie, which “felt as natural” to her as making Little Women.
Gerwig nevertheless stipulates (while praising Mattel’s Richard Dickson) that she doesn’t “have a ton of friends in corporate America,” which is a funny thing to say for an artist who apparently has a big Netflix deal and a film coming out with more than 100 brand partnerships, per The Guardian. (To name a few: Gap, Forever 21, Airbnb, NYX Cosmetics, Xbox, and etc.)
Cinephiles may be put off by this evolution of the form, but as Gerwig’s agent, U.T.A.’s Jeremy Barber, notes, that’s the era we’re in, like it or not. “Is it a great thing that our great creative actors and filmmakers live in a world where you can only take giant swings around consumer content and mass-produced products? I don’t know. But it is the business. So, if that’s what people will consume, then let’s make it more interesting, more complicated,” he argues. And it’s an evolution that Gerwig is an active participant in: “Greta and I have been very consciously constructing a career. Her ambition is to be not the biggest woman director but a big studio director. And Barbie was a piece of I.P. that was resonant to her.”
She won’t just take any old I.P. project, however, telling the outlet she probably wouldn’t do another toy film. “It would have to be something that has some strange hook in me, that feels like it goes to the marrow,” she says. “I don’t know if there’s a doll that anyone is as mad at.” Regardless, Mattel has 45 other projects in the works, so they’re betting people really care about their toys.
116 Comments
If she wants to and can make quality pictures with massive studio budgets, more power to her.
Right? One person’s selling out is somebody else’s working.
Really well-said.
I just hope she’ll find time to work in a smaller picture. Right after Ladybird, she talked about doing a trilogy of films set in Sacramento, and I was really excited by this. I hope she’ll find time to do that.
Actually, it’s thousands of somebody else’s working.
Oh for real, this Indie Cred thing is all bullshit. Christopher Nolan wasn’t called a sellout when he made his first Batman film. Now he has all the clout he needs to make the films he wants to make, let her have the same thing.
FWIW, the cinema landscape was much different in 2005 than it is today. I also think it’s much harder to get the kind of clout that lets you get your own original ideas greenlit today. Even Spielberg struggled to get the money for Lincoln. The Russo Bros. (and to a much lesser extent James Mangold) are maybe the only notable directors that I’ve seen reach that stratospheric success in the past decade, and then use the clout to consistently make original stuff. Everyone else seems to stay working on established franchises like their life depended on it, with maybe a break to direct a Jojo Rabbit or what-have-you before jumping back into Corporate IP World. I certainly don’t blame them for it though.
Christopher Nolan wasn’t called a sellout when he made his first Batman film.That’s because no one with any artistic sensibilities gives a shit about a Chris Nolan film.
Seriously. She earned that choice by making smart, incisive well regarded films from pretty humble beginnings and is now getting these opportunities. There’s this bizarre notion in some fandom, particularly indie film fandom, that indie writers/directors/actors are choosing to eschew bigger projects because they have some “indie integrity.” Otherwise it’s a sellout. It’s like, no, these people do aspire to bigger projects and bigger pay, especially in such a mercurial industry like filmmaking. They don’t put all this work in just be some fans idealized version of a starving artist.
There’s also only so many opportunities to direct indie films and even after having a success there’s no guarantee you’ll ever get funded for another.
Precisely.
Isn’t it practically tradition for acclaimed auteur directors to do a big mainstream blockbuster every once in awhile just so they can fund their next passion project with the profits?
…where is the line between “adapting two CS Lewis novels” and “adapting IP?” I know the 00s movies were fairly successful, but Narnia is an apple to which whose bites I’d say nobody is really emotionally attached. Also, if anyone is doing this trajectory “right,” it’s Gerwig, who clearly values retaining (at least enough) creative control over her projects. Lots of directors make their flashy indie film, then get swooped up by the studios to be the Recognizable Artistic Name on the product-by-committee they call franchise films.
I was going to quip that Little Women was also “adapted IP” but turns out that book’s in the public domain now, so.
Yeah it’s not really ‘IP’ as such but it’s been adapted so many times it’s not like doing another one is in any way special or unique. It’s the 19th century literary film version of doing a Star Wars to begin with. Doing a Barbie movie is more unique and interesting than yet another version of Little Women.
Wait, so this means Zack Snyder’s Little Women, where said women are all beautiful (but dAmAgEd) emo girls with tattoos and piercings who are not only super hot but ninjas who assassinate dudes in slow-motion to the strains of a minor-key, slowed-down Steven Foster song breathily talked-sung by some 19-year-old pop starlet is good to go?
Yeah he made Sucker Punch years ago.
That was a movie?! I thought it was just a fan-made Evanessance film clip that was uploaded to Newgrounds.
E-for-effort, Robert.
The first one was successful. The next two fizzled pretty badly.
I wonder if that’s just the deal with Narnia whether its the books or the movies. No doubt it has its fans, but just anecdotally from friends and interacting with the general public, it seems like the majority all liked “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” but their interest wains with each successive book. I suspect there’s a good chunk that don’t go beyond the first one (may not even know there’s more) despite liking it. For whatever reason, the narrative just doesn’t hook people beyond the first entry.
I think part of the problem is that the Christian stuff gets heavier and heavier with each successive book, the overall story isn’t good enough to make wading through the allegory worthwhile.
I remember mom slowly realizing this and trying to convince me that I didn’t want the next book.
Yeah the ‘Aslan is actually Jesus!’ thing just doesn’t fly very well.
On the plus side, we did get noted author and Neighbours aficionado Philip Pullman going “Oh, fuck off, Lewis” and writing His Dark Materials, so there’s that.Y’know. In keeping with the theme of movie trilogies that failed badly.
The HBO series was pretty decent though!
I couldn’t get past them casting a New York theatre kid who looks like he exfoliates three times a day as a grizzled Texan cowboy. I think I switched off after his “fight” scene.
Ok I’ll give you that one, I think maybe they hired him because he does act well with Dafne Keen but he doesn’t fit the character at all.
I’m sorry, but the the bit where the Norwegians are fighting him I just had the fourth-wall-breaking fight scene from Blazing Saddles and Dom Deluise’s Buddy Bizarre shouting “NOT IN THE FACE!” Except Dom could convincingly take a stage punch. I believe there’s a bit where Lin’s getting his arse handed to him by like two Norwegians – he’s being thrown through a window or slide along bar or whatever, and he’s grinning. I mean, if you wanted a pleasant Texan with range who can fight and do humour, and who HBO knows how to get in contact with…
Don’t remember much about the sequels, but my IMDb scores are a 5 and a 6 respectively. My gut’s telling me there’s just not much there there.
The allegory gets VERY heavy (and racist and misogynistic) which doesn’t help, but they also get very light on plot. Not a lot actually happens in a lot of the later books. Wardrobe and Caspian work the best as narratives. It also has the issue of time jumping extensively so the characters you start to love are suddenly dead and new characters you don’t know or care about are there.
Surely you’re not referring to Eustace!
A bit like Oz maybe.
Real ones know that The Silver Chair is the best Narnia book.
What are you even talking about? CS Lewis’ books are BELOVED by legions of fans.
Literally my 2nd sentence starts with“No doubt it has its fans,”
Voyage of the Dawn Treader and Prince Caspian were my favorites, personally.
No one is attached to Narnia? Millions of people imagined the excitement of stumbling through a wardrobe during a game of hide and seek to find a fantastical land.
I’m talking about attachment to the adaptations themselves. People are attached to the book, and every attempt to film them is squarely a book-to-film translation. So why does this have to be framed as some craven attempt to revive IP?
I always just found my cat in there.
Yeah, but once it gets to talking animals who are allegories for the Book of Revelation and the eldest female character isn’t allowed back for being too slutty, a lot of people also jumped off. I’ll maybe give you Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, Dawn Treader and Silver Chair as being “beloved,” but I don’t think the masses got passed Silver Chair if even that far.
well that 90s band with the kid who imitated Eddie Vedder certainly did all they could to promote it
Creed?
close enough!
Correct me if I am wrong, but I read that as “Nobody is emotionally attached to the Narnia adaptations,” – not the stories/novels themselves.
Its tired. And lion is Jesus.
And this is its one contribution to the popular imagination. The books themselves are lightweight novellas with stock Enid Blyton characters experiencing no-stakes adventures in a thinly-imagined fantasy world. C. S. Lewis is somehow considered on a par with Tolkien because they were contemporaries, and held similar status in their lifetimes. Looking back, we have a better perspective.
I like your apple analogy.
Weird how Ryan Coogler got nothing but praise for jumping to well-known big budget IP and bringing his credibility to it while the female director gets dragged.
Um, Chronicles is one of my all-time favourite book series and I am VERY emotionally attached to the movies.
A lot of conservative Christians are “emotionally attached” to the Narnia series as they see it as a more “wholesome” fantasy series as compared to LOTR, Harry Potter, etc. as the whole thing is a thinly disguised Christian allegory. Which even nauseated C.S. Lewis’ friend Tolkien despite being very religious himself.Of course Gerwig could adapt them satirically and have Aslan be a child molester or something but I doubt even she would be so bold.
I mean, it wouldn’t be out of place for Chris Hansen to have shown up when Lucy first goes to Narnia. “Hi there, Mr. Tumnus, I’m Chris Hansen. You wanna explain to me why you’re home alone with an unconscious 9-year-old daughter of Eve? You wanna explain what that magical Narnian flute is used for?”
Lev Grossman’s Magicians trilogy already did the whole “author who is obviously a stand-in for C. S. Lewis is secretly a child molester” angle.
A lot of conservative Christians are “emotionally attached” to the
Narnia series as they see it as a more “wholesome” fantasy series as
compared to LOTR, Harry Potter, etc. as the whole thing is a thinly
disguised Christian allegory.
Be fair. A lot of them also like it for the Islamophobia.
I’m 37. It’s the first book series I ever fell in love with. I think a lot of people who love the books would like to see them done well. The original attempt started going heavily astray by the second movie.
I hate to break it to you, Greta ..
grow up
A picture of a cruise ship and a wooden pier? What?
“I sold out….I SOLD OUT AMC, REGAL, CINEMARK, AND EVERY OTHER THEATER CHAIN IN AMERICA!”
popsicles are punksicles that sold out.
I really don’t get the sellout labels that get tagged on people so easily. It’s one thing if someone gives up their morals/beliefs for money and disavow their early stuff; it’s another if while going for bigger budget fare you still pick projects where you can maintain your beliefs and vision.
Who’s still attacking artists in good faith for “selling out”? What is this, 1995?
We gotta save the record store from being taken over by corporate monstrosities, guys!
What if we have our own rock festival to fundraise?
Maybe we can get KISS (what year was it?) Pearl Jam to play!
Damn the man, save the Empire!
What’s with today, today?
Sorry. I can’t. I’m actually stuck in 1985 so I’m busy saving this ski school from being sold to an evil business man and his preppy son
Sounds like you need an action training montage!
It’s funny and sad to think that these days people are sad about the local Barnes & Noble near us closing. Which I totally get — it will mean that we literally won’t have a bookstore within 20 miles, but yes, the anger against “corporate monstrosities” that people used to have in the 1990s is pretty much now just focused on things like Amazon rather than brick & mortar stores even if owned by corporations.
There’s a Barnes n Noble not too near us (I live a few miles outside Denver so we’re not really near anything) and I find whenever I go in there the selection is so anemic I end up having to order whatever I’m looking for anyway.
The sentiment isn’t exclusively a hipster/gatekeeper sentiment. Independent, indie films are important. It’s not without reason.
Not enough people are attacked for selling out.
I mean this article has the phrase “snapped up by the Marvel machine”, but that might just be for SEO
Shits got way worse since “selling out” became a concept to be mocked and eventually not even considered as a possibility.
As long as the movies start with “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe,” rather than the reordered-to-help-a-grifter-leech-off-the-estate alleged first book “The Magician’s Nephew,” it’s all good.
(Seriously, the background of why all the Narnia book collections now begin with that book is maddening and depressing.)
I’m actually quite fond of that book as a prequel but wasn’t aware of any major controversy over it’s publication.
Why does it matter now though?Personally am hoping they do start with Magician’s Nephew simply because it has never been adapted and it’s my favorite of the series. The first three books have been adapted multiple times and The Silver Chair was done by the BBC as well.
Why does it matter now though?Because people are discovering the books for the first time after you and they should get to have the same good experience.The lamp post in the Lion, The Witch & the Wardrobe, for instance, only seems magical if your response isn’t “oh yeah, we saw that happen in the last book.” The whole point of Lewis adding it to the story was “look, kids, you are in a clearly magical world where, against all logic, there’s a lamp post that gets electricity from somewhere unknown in the middle of a snowy forest.”From an actual writing standpoint, you want to set up the mystery before revealing the answer.
The modern reordering was done so that a grifter could cash in on the “author’s preferred order” editions. All the actual Lewis scholars are on the side of publication order.
I still have my copies of the books in the original publication order. The new order annoyed me too. I remember being a little kid and being so excited when I read Magician’s Nephew and figured out things like the origin of the wardrobe etc. It was a good way to learn about fiction and story progression as a kid.
Lewis himself said Magicians Nephew is the first book, so I’m good with it being made into a movie.
I’m sure you already realize this, but complaining about a woman selling out in Hollywood sure seems like a choice.
Get that bag girl.
Maybe stop trying to make a bunch of kids and their talking Jesus-lion pal into an epic film series and give it the VeggieTales treatment it deserves.
Mary, this is a ridiculous post. Unless you’re doing horror, and almost exclusively horror, no one is greenlighting non-IP movies of any notable scale (and most horror being made is on a very tight budget). Indie films have an ever-thinner margin of business, which need to be made up via streaming deals (theatrical typically doesn’t get indies to profit). That leaves TV/streaming. The truth is that virtually all the interesting stuff we used to see in indie films is almost exclusively being done on TV/streaming platforms. It’s been that way for a while now, which makes this “story” not only unnecessarily mean-spirited but also ignorant of the very industry you’ve been tapped to cover. The only way to be a top-tier-status film director these days is to 1) be Christopher Nolan (whose films aren’t exactly doing profitable business these days) 2) be James Cameron (whose luck is holding … so far) or 3) do IP. You want to see some nuanced and weird shit? Go put on Atlanta or I’m a Virgo or Swarm or a million other wonderful things that couldn’t be supported by today’s film business.
Tenet came out during the pandemic and so has an asterisk beside its box-office gross, but Dunkirk was a pretty huge success.
No doubt Tenet was dinged by the pandemic, but I have serious reservations about whether it would have been a blockbuster. It was pretty badly reviewed, it was a little messy to follow (disorientation is not always bad; puzzlers can be pretty compelling), there wasn’t a clear hook and no A-list star. No one can say for sure whether it would have succeeded or not, but I tend to think it was going to be an uphill battle, pandemic or no pandemic.
It’s so hard to say what would’ve happened with Tenet. It’s really just not a very good movie, and I don’t think word of mouth would’ve helped it that much. It got decent returns overseas, though, so who knows? It might have had a decent showing in the states without the pandemic to drag it down, but you’re probably right it never would’ve been a smash hit.
The secret to Nolan’s success, though? He actually works relatively cheap, especially when you don’t include the Batman films. Tenet was just a tick over 200 million, true, but Dunkirk and Oppenheimer both are budgeted at $100 million, which would barely cover actor salaries on a new Avengers film. Interstellar and Inception were in the mid 100 million range. That’s a lot, but not when compared with studio tentpoles in general. The math for what is and what isn’t a hit changes considerably when you’re making movies for that (relatively) cheap. Especially when you’ve got a trend of getting a ton of buzz for your films, and Oscar nods to boot.
That’s a great point. Controlling salaries (as in Tenet, which starred a group of pretty affordable actors) is one way to do wildly “big” films on a reasonable-ish budget. It also makes the bet a bit easier to make. Your comment makes me want to see Nolan make something on a Jason Blum budget. I bet it would be insanely great.
It’s not like the author is asserting their own point of view here. They’re *reporting* on what others have said, including Greta & her manager. Calm down.
You’re right. Def cannot derive any conclusion about the author’s POV from this piece. Not at all. No snark here. Greta Gerwig, now set to adapt two Narnia movies, was surprised to be accused of selling outGreta Gerwig wants to be a “big studio director,” even if it means cashing in on the I.P. era of cinemaThere is no way to be a big studio director without IP. There isn’t an option B. It’s like saying: She wants to keep living, even if it means breathing air. This story (intentionally or through lack of insight) makes no mention of the fact that films like Frances Ha and Lady Bird would now have to be made as streaming series or, at best, launched with a streamer deal in place to make the financing work. It bitches about Gerwig’s career path but doesn’t acknowledge the changing landscape in Hollywood. It’s either uninformed or intentionally leaving out necessary context.You can pretend the post doesn’t have an axe to grind but the intent is clear.
“unnecessarily mean-spirited but also ignorant of the very industry you’ve been tapped to cover”
—The A.V. Club (more often than not now, sadly)
Calling someone a sell out is really saying, “I want you to stay a loser so I feel better”
I guess you could say Mattel moved her… TO A BIGGER HOUSE!
A barbie dream house.
That’s disappointing. I’m sure her Narnias will be good, but artists with sway should be pushing back against IP dominance, not giving in
Mattel has 45 other projects in the worksHow many related to Hot Wheels? 40?
I’d watch a Hot Wheels movie.
Vin Diesel says he’d probably like to be in a Hot Wheels movie.
Her talent feels more suited to Barbie than to Narnia. With Barbie, there’s a feeling of “what is she going to do with this”; there’s no narrative material to compare it to. With Narnia, she’s going to have to follow the story, and that story is not good.
Narnia is not a good story?? The only way I can see you writing that comment is, you haven’t read the books.
Past! Dig…sometimes I comment without reading the article!
Narnia is a good story? the only way I can see you writing that comment is, you haven’t read the books since you were a child encountering books for the first time.
I don’t think she’s a sellout for making Narnia films. I think she’s a sellout for directing remakes/reboots of the Narnia stories. But she also made *yet another* adaptation of Little Women, so maybe she’s been a sellout for awhile now…
People sure want women to succeed… until they do. Then it’s bad.
Sign her up for Captain Marvel 3!
She missed The Golden Compass series and is doing these as a fallback?
‘Once Great, Now Completely Corrupted Entertainment Site Staffed Exclusively By Soulless, Talentless Clickbaiters to Greta Gerwig: Go To Hell!’
No, it’s also staffed by Robots, because Jim Spanfeller remains, as always, a herb.
Yeah, I’m pretty much noping out of G/O sites. Even The Onion is too many shitty slideshows these days.
Missed this. Fucking gross.Not that a few of the writers haven’t already been using ChatGPT for months!
hopefully Magicians Nephew split over two films
So do these pick up where the other Narnia films left off, or are these reboots, or what? I thought the movies were of variable quality, but good enough that I was surprised they stopped making them.