What the statement actually says
NarniaWeb published the text on October 6. The families said they have witnessed Gerwig’s “sincere passion” for the series in conversations and on a visit to the London set, that they are “thrilled” to keep working with the production, and that their vision is for the movie to be “enormously successful” so the same calibre of talent can be applied to the rest of the Chronicles. The paragraph does not mention Streep, Aslan, or the decade shift.
It arrived days after Movieguide founder Ted Baehr told CBN that members of Lewis’s family were “very upset” about Streep voicing Aslan and worried the choice would “destroy the brand.” Baehr has long personal ties to Douglas Gresham. A written blessing and a secondhand report of anger can both be in circulation. Only one of them is a document Netflix handed out.
Who signed, and what they have not heard
David Gresham died in 2014. Douglas retains an executive-producer credit and spent years as the estate’s public face on the Walden films. In 2024 his wife and children said he has frontotemporal dementia and the early stages of Parkinson’s and is cared for at home. NarniaWeb noted it is not obvious which relatives put their names on the Netflix sentence. The C. S. Lewis Company, which holds the rights, has separately praised Gerwig. A source who worked on the film told NarniaWeb that company representatives were on set every day. The family that issued the statement says it has not heard the lion.
The open question is whether a set visit and a carefully warm paragraph settle the argument Empire started, or whether February still has to answer what Aslan sounds like when the rooms open.
