NarniaWeb has learned that Academy Award-winning Creature Effects artist Neal Scanlan will be working on Greta Gerwig’s upcoming adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew at Netflix.
Scanlan is a veteran of the animatronics and practical effects industry, having worked at the legendary Jim Henson Creature Shop during the 1990s. He won an Academy Award for his work on Babe and has since earned four additional Oscar nominations for his work on the recent Star Wars films.
Scanlan is no stranger to Narnia, having worked on Paramount and director John Boorman’s abandoned adaptation in the mid-1990s during his time with the Jim Henson Company. His other recent credits include Prometheus, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
Neal Scanlan with sculptures from the abandoned mid-1990s Narnia movie.
While the digital effects for Gerwig’s Narnia film will be handled by Framestore and other VFX houses, Scanlan and his team will focus on practical creature effects by bringing Narnia’s talking animals and mythological beings to life through animatronics, puppetry, and prosthetics.
The creature effects for the Walden Media Chronicles of Narnia films were provided by Howard Berger’s KNB EFX Group, which earned the series its lone Academy Award in 2006 for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.