Netflix plans a film version of C.S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew with a reported 300 million dollar budget due in theaters early next year. Meryl Streep will voice Aslan, the books’ central male lion.

Lewis wrote that Aslan represents Christ entering a world of talking beasts as a lion, as king of beasts and the Lion of Judah. The studio hopes the movie will begin a franchise based on the other six books.