‘Nothing short of insane’: Narnia gender swap rumours spark backlash

Fans of the classic C.S. Lewis series The Chronicles of Narnia have been left furious over casting rumours for the new big screen adaptation.

Barbie director Greta Gerwig’s upcoming The Chronicles of Narnia adaptation has sparked backlash over the latest casting news.

Deadline recently reported that Meryl Streep is in talks to voice Aslan in the film.

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

News of Streep’s alleged casting as Aslan sparked a mostly negative reaction from fans on social media.

“But Aslan is a male lion?” one fan wrote on X.

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

A different 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. Will 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,” another tweet read.

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

Aslan from the original film series.

Though Meryl Streep can do anything. Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images

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

Deadline previously reported that Charli XCX is in talks for the role of Queen Jadis/the White Witch, played by Tilda Swinton in the original film series. The outlet also claimed that Daniel Craig was offered a role in the film.

Gerwig, 41, has been tapped to direct two Narnia movies. The first will be released in IMAX theaters on Thanksgiving Day 2026 for two weeks, before it premieres on Netflix.

The film will be Gerwig’s first directorial feature since Barbie, which grossed over $1.4 billion at the worldwide box office in 2023.

Gerwig previously gave some insight into her take on the beloved fantasy series.

“It’s connected to the folklore and fairy stories of England, but it’s a combination of different traditions,” she told 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.”

The Barbie director has copped some heat over the proposed move. Photo by Marleen Moise/Getty Images

“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 it will be bigger and bolder than they thought.”

The original Chronicles of Narnia film trilogy came out between 2005 and 2010. Andrew Adamson directed the first two movies while Michael Apted directed the third.

This story first appeared in the New York Post and was republished with permission.