Netflix Kickstarts a Major Fantasy Franchise Decades in the Making – Watch the Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew Trailer

Netflix is bringing The Chronicles of Narnia back to the big screen with the first trailer drop for Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew. The teaser suggests that C.S. Lewis’s fantasy land is about to receive a huge dose of ‘70s glam rock. The rights to Lewis’s novels were acquired by the streaming giant back in 2018, but rather than starting with another adaptation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Gerwig is taking audiences all the way back to the beginning of Narnia. The “Barbie” director is writing and directing the film, which is the first feature film adaptation of Lewis’ 1955 novel. With mirrored costumes, extravagant sets, and some definite David Bowie influences, this is not going to be the Narnia audiences remember.

In The Magician’s Nephew, two children from London, Digory Kirke (David McKenna) and Polly Plummer (Beatrice Campbell), discover that their world is not the only one. Digory’s strange Uncle Andrew, played by Daniel Craig, has been experimenting with magical rings that enable people to travel between worlds. Unfortunately, the children wake up Emma Mackey’s Jadis, who later becomes a familiar figure to fans of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It also stars Carey Mulligan and features Meryl Streep as the voice of the lion Aslan. The film Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew will be released in theaters on February 12, 2027, and on Netflix on April 2. The trailer can be seen below:

Greta Gerwig Is Turning Narnia Into a ’70s Rock Opera

The sixth of Lewis’ seven Narnia books to be published, The Magician’s Nephew is the first in the series’ chronological order. The book explains how Aslan created Narnia, where the White Witch came from, and why there’s a lamppost in the middle of a wood. And it’s a story that allows Gerwig to experiment with the visuals of Lewis’s universe. “I wanted a rock opera,” Gerwig told Empire. “Narnia is literally a world made out of music. It is a world sung to life by Aslan, and rock ’n’ roll, to me, felt like a world made out of music.” She even borrowed from David Bowie to give Aslan heterochromia, a red stripe across his face, and some very trippy multicolored whiskers. Emma Mackey’s mirrored costume evokes the same glam-rock aesthetic, while the elaborate set surrounding Daniel Craig’s Uncle Andrew looks like something out of Ken Russell’s 1975 rock opera Tommy. Craig’s hair doesn’t help the comparison either. Little Women demonstrated how Gerwig could breathe new life into a literary classic, whereas Barbie demonstrated she could create a complex fantasy world based on a well-known property. In The Magician’s Nephew, she applies her instincts to build a whole new world that people think they know.

The book also introduces the Wood Between the Worlds, a forest with pools that connect to other universes. Star Wars fans may recognize the concept from Rebels, which debuted the World Between Worlds in 2018. Dave Filoni has admitted that Lewis’ novel directly inspired the mystical realm that enables Ezra Bridger to travel through time and save Ahsoka Tano from Darth Vader. Filoni revealed in 2018 that Lewis’s enchanted forest had been a part of his childhood imagination. A small portion of Star Wars mythology can be traced back to a children’s fantasy novel published over 60 years ago. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at that ep of Rebels:

Between 1988 and 1990, the BBC produced four Narnia books for television, while Disney and Walden Media launched their film franchise with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in 2005. Prior to the franchise’s hiatus, two sequels were released: Prince Caspian (2008) and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010). One of the fun aspects of starting with The Magician’s Nephew is that we’ve already met Digory Kirke. In the 2005 film, the Pevensie children are taken in by Professor Kirke, played by Jim Broadbent, during WWII. And how did the Professor come to know so much about Lucy’s magical wardrobe? That’s because he had visited Narnia himself. In fact, the wardrobe was made from a tree that had grown from a magical apple that Digory had brought back from his adventures. There is even a post-credits scene in the 2005 film where the professor admits he attempted to go back through the wardrobe himself. See it here:

With The Magician’s Nephew, Netflix finally brings a piece of Narnia’s history to the big screen that previous adaptations have not included. And if the first trailer is any indication, Gerwig is barreling right ahead in building her own ’70s glam playground out of C.S. Lewis’s book. The film Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew will be released in theaters on February 12, 2027, and on Netflix on April 2.