Greta Gerwig's 'Narnia' Trailer Is Here — and Led Zeppelin Said Yes to 'Stairway to Heaven'

Some trailers introduce a movie. This one introduced a world — which is, after all, the assignment. On Tuesday, October 13, Netflix released the first trailer for “Narnia: The Magician's Nephew,” the sweeping fantasy epic directed by Greta Gerwig, her first film since “Barbie” became the defining blockbuster of 2023. The Associated Press and USA TODAY both covered the release, which Gerwig had unveiled hours earlier the way the film itself demands to be seen: on an IMAX screen at AMC Lincoln Square in New York, in conversation with Stephen Colbert.

The footage wastes no time on throat-clearing. Two children, a magic ring, a London that is about to become far too small for them — and then, in the trailer's defining moment, a lion singing a world into existence while Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” — the song Gerwig persuaded the band to license — climbs underneath it. “Have you ever seen a world born?” the trailer asks, in the closing line quoted in USA TODAY’s coverage of the release. By the end of the week, a great many people will have an answer.

The Story: London, 1900, and the First Morning of the World

Gerwig has gone back to the beginning — all the way back. “The Magician's Nephew,” published by C.S. Lewis in 1955 as the sixth book of the Chronicles, is the series' prequel: the origin story Lewis wrote after the rest. Set in London in 1900, it follows Digory, played by newcomer David McKenna, and his friend Polly, played by Beatrice Campbell, who get hold of a magic ring and find themselves traveling between worlds — and who are present, awestruck, at the creation of Narnia itself, as Aslan sings it into existence.

That creation sequence is the trailer's centerpiece and the film's reason for being. Most fantasy franchises begin with a world already built and a war already brewing; this one begins with music, light and a first morning. It is also a shrewd choice of source material for a relaunch: a prequel needs no homework, explains everything the famous stories assumed, and lets a new audience enter Narnia the way Digory and Polly do — through a door they did not expect, into a place being made in front of them.

The Song Led Zeppelin Almost Never Says Yes To

Every trailer has music. This one's music is a headline of its own: the trailer is scored to Led Zeppelin's “Stairway to Heaven,” a song the band has famously almost never licensed for film. Zeppelin's catalog is one of the most closely guarded in rock — filmmakers have chased these songs for decades and mostly been told no — so hearing those opening notes unfurl under the creation of Narnia is itself a piece of news about how seriously everyone involved is taking this movie.

It did not happen by email. Gerwig met with Robert Plant and Jimmy Page in person, she explained, and the two men, per USA TODAY's account of the unveiling, understood the heart of the film — and love C.S. Lewis themselves. There is a pleasing symmetry in it: a song that generations of listeners have treated as a kind of secular scripture, attached to a story that has always been about wonder, temptation and a garden at the edge of the world. Whether the pairing was Gerwig's idea or fate's, it tells the audience in eight seconds what the film's tone will be: reverent, enormous, and built out of music — which is fitting for a movie whose climax is a song that creates a universe.

Two Newcomers at the Center of a Very Famous Cast

Around its two young leads, Gerwig has assembled the kind of ensemble that announces a studio's ambitions. Emma Mackey plays Jadis — the figure whose arrival in the young world of Narnia carries the whole future of the series inside it. Daniel Craig plays Uncle Andrew Ketterley, the “magician” of the title, whose experiments set the children's journey in motion. And Meryl Streep voices Aslan, the lion whose song builds the world and whose presence has anchored Lewis's books for seventy years.

Carey Mulligan and Ciarán Hinds round out the ensemble named in the trailer coverage, per the Associated Press. The structure is classic and deliberate: beloved veterans in the mythic roles, unknowns where it matters most. Narnia belongs to Digory and Polly before it belongs to anyone, and casting fresh faces at the center is how a franchise tells you it plans to be around for the whole series of books — not just for one expensive opening weekend.

“I Only Know How to Make Movies for the Big Screen”

The unveiling's setting was a message, and so was the conversation that has followed Gerwig from the project's beginning. Recounting her dealings with Netflix chief Ted Sarandos — an exchange Gerwig described at the New York unveiling, per USA TODAY — she recalled telling Sarandos: “I only know how to make movies for the big screen.” Sarandos's reply, as she tells it: “Make the movie for the biggest screen you can imagine.” Debuting the trailer on an IMAX screen in conversation with Colbert — a pairing of showman and storyteller that filled a New York auditorium for a two-minute trailer — was the streamer putting that exchange into practice in public.

Netflix Rewrites Its Own Release Playbook

The business story here is nearly as striking as the trailer. The production's budget has been reported at about $280 million, per Associated Press and Independent reporting — a figure that places it among the most expensive films Netflix has ever made. And in a genuine reversal for Netflix, whose model has always been streaming-first with, at most, a brief theatrical courtesy run, “The Magician's Nephew” will get a wide theatrical release on February 12, 2027, preceded by IMAX sneak previews on February 10 — and only then arrive on Netflix, on April 2, 2027.

Read that sequence again, because streamers do not do it by accident. A theatrical window measured in weeks, launched on the biggest screens in the world, is a bet that this film is an event in the old sense — the kind audiences leave the house for — and a concession to the director whose name is the marketing. It also resets expectations for what a Netflix film can be: not content that premieres on a home screen, but a blockbuster that merely ends up there. If it works, every major filmmaker negotiating with a streamer will cite this release pattern by spring.

The Long Road Through the Wardrobe

There is risk here, and the trailer knows it. Lewis's books are sacred to generations of readers; the previous screen adaptations set a high water mark this production will be measured against from the first frame; and Gerwig is following “Barbie,” a cultural phenomenon that turned its director into the most sought-after filmmaker alive. Choosing the prequel — the creation story, the one with a singing lion and a song by Led Zeppelin — is her answer: not a remake of the famous tale, but the day the whole world began.

The wait now begins. “Narnia: The Magician's Nephew” opens in theaters February 12, 2027, with IMAX sneak previews February 10, and streams on Netflix April 2, 2027. For more of the streamer's week, see our coverage of Netflix's “The Trap” premiere and the Tyson docuseries premiere, browse this week's Apple TV premieres, and keep the news front open — Narnia's road to February starts here.