Meryl Streep has triggered substantial controversy after news emerged that she’s been cast to provide the voice of Aslan in Greta Gerwig’s forthcoming Netflix reimagining of C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia.
The project, with a reported budget of $280 million, is anticipated to center on The Magician’s Nephew. Yet the casting decision has unleashed a torrent of digital disapproval, especially from Christian audiences and evangelical voices.
Greta, whose previous credits include Barbie and Little Women, is handling both screenplay and directorial duties for the production, which is scheduled to debut in cinemas on February 12, 2027, with a Netflix launch two months later. The announcement arrives just months following Meryl’s return as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada 2.
Meryl, 77, has been selected to voice Aslan, a character portrayed as a magnificent, speaking lion, who features across all seven installments of the literary series, reports the Express US. Aslan represents the supreme creator and guardian of Narnia – and Lewis, a devout Christian theologian, deliberately crafted it as a symbolic Christ figure.
Liam Neeson, 74, previously provided the lion’s voice in the movie trilogy, which ran from 2005 to 2010 and generated approximately $1.5 billion worldwide. Meryl’s casting represents a collaboration reunion for the performer and 43-year-old director Greta, who last partnered on the 2019 production Little Women.
The filmmaker revealed she deliberately searched for a performer above 70 who brings together authority, the perspective of age, and a youthful openness to discovery – characteristics she discovered ideally represented in Meryl.
Yet the choice to feature a woman in a role traditionally associated with male pronouns has sparked substantial backlash from multiple evangelical and Christian organizations, who have labeled the production as “profaning Christ” through a feminist agenda.
Lutheran analyst and podcast host Liam McCollum claimed Lewis “would’ve hated Gerwig’s deconstruction and subversion of Aslan,” while L. David Fairchild, pastor of Cross and Crown in Waxahachie, Texas, characterized Meryl’s selection as “astonishingly arrogant.”
The clergyman continued, “Giving Aslan a female voice isn’t daring or profound or some brilliant act of creative genius.” He stated, “It’s an act of creative vandalism pretending to be artistic sophistication. It’s more ideological slop produced by the machine that’s given us plenty already.”
Conservative analyst Isabel Brown declared, “In case there’s ANY confusion, CS Lewis literally intended Aslan to be the incarnation of Christ inside the world of Narnia.”
She continued, “To cast Meryl Streep as Aslan in Greta Gerwig’s Narnia is a slap in the face to the genius of Lewis, but also a deliberate mockery of Christianity that is 100% intentional. So deeply disappointing.”
Despite Meryl’s casting, early reports from Empire Magazine suggest the character of Aslan may continue to be referenced with male pronouns in the upcoming film. Discussing her casting choice, Greta explained, “I wanted someone who was older than 70, so there was a wisdom of experience, but who also had the capacity of fresh wonder, like a child.”
She added, “And also to be one of the greatest actors to ever do it. That list is not a long one.”
