Netflix debuted the first trailer for Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew on Tuesday in the IMAX theater atop the AMC Lincoln Square on New York’s Upper West Side, turning a streaming title into a large-screen event. The preview arrived with light-up rings that flashed in time with the biggest moments, and Gerwig said she was tearing up after it ended.
The trailer gives the first look at David McKenna’s Digorey Kirke, who wonders about his uncle Andrew, played by Daniel Craig, before magic pulls him and other children into Narnia through a ring. Talking animals, a flying horse and Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” fill out a debut that was built to feel like spectacle, not a quiet platform drop.
Gerwig said the flying horse scene was her favorite to film, but the music may tell the bigger story. She said she showed the film to Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, who allowed her to use the song after seeing what she was trying to make. In her telling, they saw the heart of the film and understood her love for C.S. Lewis, and she called the track “the story of the movie” as well as a kind of “spiritual quest.”
That matters because the project is being framed as Netflix’s biggest theatrical debut release in history, even though Gerwig said she only knows how to make movies for theaters. She said she told Ted Sarandos that part of her process was imagining the film in the theater, and he pushed her toward “the biggest screen you can imagine.” The result is a rare case of a streamer leaning into the cinema experience while still planning a title that is meant to live beyond it. For readers tracking that path, the release window remains the next question; one previous update on Greta Gerwig Narnia Netflix Release set for theaters, then streaming can be found here:
Gerwig said an earlier conversation with Sarandos helped land her the writing and directing job, after she was introduced to Netflix when Noah Baumbach made Marriage Story for the streamer. She also said the Chronicles of Narnia books were childhood favorites that helped shape who she became, which explains why she made a beeline for Sarandos at a cocktail party and began pitching her vision, with The Magician’s Nephew as the first film. Roughly 20 minutes later, Sarandos asked whether she wanted to write it. The trailer has now made that pitch visible, but the date when audiences will actually see the film in theaters or on Netflix has still not been set.
