Netflix has released the first trailer for Narnia: The Magician's Nephew, Greta Gerwig's adaptation of C.S. Lewis's 1955 novel, giving audiences their first finished footage from the opening chapter of the streamer's planned Chronicles of Narnia films. The trailer debuted online on Tuesday, October 13, following a New York IMAX preview event where Gerwig presented the footage in conversation with Stephen Colbert, according to USA Today and the Associated Press account carried by the Los Angeles Post. It is, by every account, an origin story told as a rock opera: the footage is scored to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," a song the band has famously declined to license for films — until now.
A world being born, not a kingdom being revisited
Every previous screen Narnia began with the Pevensie children and a wardrobe. Gerwig begins earlier — at the beginning of everything. The Magician's Nephew was the sixth Narnia book Lewis published, in 1955, but its story comes first: two London children, Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer, get hold of magic rings made by Digory's uncle and find themselves hopping between worlds through the Wood Between the Worlds, a quiet forest dotted with pools, each one a doorway into a different universe. Their travels wake the exiled queen Jadis, carry her between worlds, and end with the children standing in an empty darkness while a lion sings a new world — Narnia — into existence around them.
The trailer, as described by Hypebeast and Cinema Express, follows that arc closely. It opens with Daniel Craig's Uncle Andrew introducing Digory and Polly to the magical rings. From there it moves through the pond-filled Wood Between the Worlds, into a crumbling, desolate realm where Emma Mackey's Jadis makes her entrance, and past creatures including the winged horse Fledge. The closing reveal is Aslan himself, voiced by Meryl Streep, appearing first as a vast cosmic silhouette while the lion's song brings Narnia to life. The trailer's signature line, quoted across the coverage, asks: "Have you ever seen a world born?"
The cast: newcomers at the center, heavyweights around them
Gerwig has built the film the way the book demands — unknown children at the center, formidable adults at the edges. Digory and Polly are played by newcomers David McKenna and Beatrice Campbell, per the casting reported by Radio Times and Hypebeast. Around them: Meryl Streep provides the voice of Aslan, Daniel Craig plays Uncle Andrew, Emma Mackey is Jadis — the queen who will become the White Witch of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe — and Carey Mulligan plays Digory's mother, Mabel, according to Radio Times. Ciarán Hinds, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Denise Gough and Susan Wokoma round out the ensemble named in the poster and trailer coverage.
Streep's casting is the one that will be argued about longest, and the trailer is careful with it: reports note Aslan is teased more than heard, a cosmic outline and a roar rather than a speech. That restraint is probably wise. Aslan is the moral center of Lewis's series, and Gerwig's stated way in, in Netflix's official statement quoted by Radio Times, was a childhood love of the image of a cosmic lion singing the world of Narnia to life — music first, mythology second.
Why 'Stairway to Heaven' is the headline inside the trailer
The music is not decoration; it is the story of how this film wants to be received. At the IMAX preview, Gerwig explained that she personally made the case to Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, USA Today reported, telling the audience the band had not let the song be used for anything before — and that the musicians, who love Lewis's books, understood the heart of the film. She described the song and the novel as sharing a subject: a spiritual journey, and the false paths along the way. Gerwig has framed the whole adaptation as a rock opera, with David Bowie and The Who among her cited influences, per Cinema Express's poster coverage — a deliberate, theatrical register far from the stately tone of the 2000s film adaptations. Mark Ronson, her Barbie collaborator, returns to handle the music, Hypebeast reported.
Gerwig's first film since Barbie — and Netflix's biggest theatrical bet
This is Gerwig's first feature since Barbie, which grossed more than $1 billion worldwide in 2023, and Netflix is releasing it like a studio tentpole rather than a streaming premiere. The film opens in theaters globally, including IMAX, on February 12, 2027 — with IMAX previews from February 10 — for an eight-week theatrical run, and arrives on Netflix on April 2, 2027, according to Qazinform's reporting, corroborated by USA Today, Hypebeast and the AP. Multiple outlets describe the rollout as Netflix's first global theatrical release of this scale ahead of a streaming debut, and the AP put the production budget at $280 million, which would make it one of the most expensive films the company has ever made.
Gerwig, for her part, has been straightforward about the terms. She told the preview audience she approached Netflix chief Ted Sarandos years ago about the film, and that her condition was scale — a movie made for the big screen. His reply, as she retold it, was to make the movie for the biggest screen she could imagine. The February 2027 date is the company taking her literally.
Why start with the prequel?
Because Lewis himself suggested it. The Magician's Nephew has never been adapted for the screen before — not by the BBC, not by earlier film series — and Lewis later expressed a preference that readers begin the series with the origin story, a preference Gerwig has cited in choosing it as her starting point, per Cinema Express and Bustle. Netflix acquired rights to all seven books in 2018, and Gerwig's agreement covers a second film as well, according to Dork's poster coverage, though its title has not been announced. Starting at the creation has a practical elegance: it lets this series build its own Aslan, its own Jadis and its own Narnia from the first frame, instead of remaking scenes audiences already know by heart. The wardrobe can wait. First, a lion has to sing. For more film coverage, see our entertainment stories in the news feed and the Coming Soon hub.
