Turns out that Greta Gerwig’s “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” is being shot in VistaVision and 35mm. That’s what cinematographer Seamus McGarvey recently told The Filmmaker’s Podcast.
For more than six decades, no movies were filmed using VistaVision until Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” revived the format last year. The last film to employ VistaVision cameras was Marlon Brando’s “One-Eyed Jacks” back in 1961.
Over the next 12 months, five upcoming films are set to be shot in VistaVision. It's unclear if this signals a lasting revival or just a temporary trend, but for now, projects from Gerwig, Emerald Fennell, Paul Thomas Anderson, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Yorgos Lanthimos are slated for release in 2025 and 2026—all using VistaVision.
When it was revealed in January that ‘Narnia’ would debut exclusively in IMAX theaters in November 2026, one detail that flew under the radar was that Greta Gerwig hadn’t yet decided whether to use the IMAX 70mm film camera. An IMAX Investors Briefing from April 2025 does not list ‘Narnia’ among the films being shot with IMAX cameras. With filming scheduled to start in just two months, it's unlikely that this will change.