Picture Credits: Netflix
Hours before the first trailer for Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew hit the internet, Greta Gerwig was standing in front of the biggest screen in New York making her case for it. Hosted by Stephen Colbert at the AMC Lincoln Square IMAX on Tuesday morning, the event gave Gerwig the chance to explain the thinking behind her divisive vision of Narnia: the music, the faith, the cast, and why she believes every bold choice still traces back to C.S. Lewis. Meanwhile, the reactions to the trailer have been anything but unanimous.
Netflix invited some (yes, we’re salty) press, fan sites, influencers, and awards voters to the AMC Lincoln Square 13 for the sneak peek, which included the world premiere of the trailer, two behind-the-scenes featurettes, and a lengthy conversation between Gerwig and Colbert. The now-former Late Show host joked more than once about currently being between jobs.
If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, catch up with our full trailer breakdown before diving in.
Gerwig on Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew
While we weren’t invited to the sneak peek, Netflix released a portion of the interview overnight, so let’s dive into what was said:
“Those books created me”
Gerwig’s pitch for the film starts with her own childhood. She told the audience she can’t remember a time before she knew the books, which were read to her before she could read herself, and that once she could, she read them again and again.
They were as real to me as anything else.
And yes, when Colbert asked whether she was one of the kids who pushed through to the back of the closet just to check, she admitted she was.
You go back there and you believe that maybe on the other side there’s going to be this snow-covered world that needs you. They were just a part of the DNA of who I knew myself to be.
Like most readers, Gerwig started with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and read the series in publication order, which meant she didn’t reach The Magician’s Nephew until it was second to last, right before The Last Battle. It was only later that she discovered Lewis had written a letter saying he’d prefer readers to start with The Magician’s Nephew, since that’s the beginning. That’s Lewis’s well-known 1957 reply to a young American fan, and it’s a big part of why Netflix’s Narnia starts with the creation of the world rather than the wardrobe. The admission drew applause from the reading-order purists in the room, prompting Colbert to note that there were people who love order in attendance.
According to Rotten Tomatoes, Gerwig also shared that she first talked Ted Sarandos’s ear off about how Narnia should be adapted at an event for Marriage Story, and that she wrote her earliest drafts in 2020 and 2021, before Barbie turned her into one of the biggest directors on the planet. You may remember that, soon after, we scooped Gerwig’s involvement, which was long after the previous architect had moved on from the projects.
She framed the film as the second adaptation of a book that shaped her, after Little Women:
With books of childhood, they create you. They created me. Those books created me. And I’ve had the privilege of adapting the two big books of my life as a child, which is Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, and now with Narnia.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – OCTOBER 13: Stephen Colbert and Greta Gerwig pose with guests at Netflix’s Narnia IMAX exclusive sneak peek event at AMC Lincoln Square 13 on October 13, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Netflix)
Walking in Lewis’s shoes
This is the heart of Gerwig’s defense against the “this isn’t Narnia” crowd. Her process, she explained, involved reading (or rereading) everything Lewis wrote, then reading the books he read and loved, and then physically retracing his steps.
I try to walk in his shoes as much as possible. I went to Oxford, I went to Cambridge, I went to Belfast, and kind of trying to align myself with what his interior life would be, so that my instincts would try to go in the direction of where his soul was. It’s such an enjoyable, kind of amazing art to undertake an adaptation because you get to commune with a mind that has created you, has shaped you.
She began with Lewis’s language, writing out every sentence from the Narnia books that gave her goosebumps and setting them alongside his other writing. From there, she leaned into two images from The Magician’s Nephew in particular: the stars singing as Aslan brings the world to life, and a little boy hiding in his back garden, pretending not to cry.
It was kind of this, again, the cosmic and the close. He gave me the gift of his language, and then it was just sort of how to bring that all to life.
Two lonely children in a very big movie
Colbert pointed out that for all its spectacle, The Magician’s Nephew is at heart the story of two lonely children. Gerwig said she always approaches a film through the soul of its characters, and that Digory and Polly’s friendship is what lets the movie scale up to multiple universes while still feeling intimate.
If it’s in the heart, it can be huge, and it can be small, and both can be true.
That friendship was baked into casting, too. Gerwig and casting director Nina Gold looked at thousands of children before landing on David McKenna and Beatrice Campbell. NarniaWeb reports that the pair kept finding each other during group screen tests, and that Gerwig called it “a sign” when she learned McKenna, like Lewis, is from Belfast.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – OCTOBER 13: Stephen Colbert and Greta Gerwig speak onstage at Netflix’s Narnia IMAX exclusive sneak peek event at AMC Lincoln Square 13 on October 13, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Netflix)
Daniel Craig was nervous (the kids weren’t)
As for the starry adult ensemble of Carey Mulligan, Daniel Craig, Emma Mackey, Ciarán Hinds, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith and, of course, Meryl Streep, Gerwig said they all signed on out of love for Lewis and were there to support the young leads. Her favorite moment happened while the cast waited in a hallway before rehearsal:
Daniel Craig said to them, ‘I’m a bit nervous for rehearsal,’ and they said, ‘Don’t worry. Greta’s really nice. You’ll be fine.’
When adults play with children and you get right down on their level, they did that. All the adult actors did that, both literally and metaphorically. They got right down on their level because they were there for them.
Picture Credit: Netflix
A blockbuster about creation, not destruction
One of Gerwig’s more interesting points was about scale. Movies this big, she noted, are usually about blowing things up (“Skyscrapers become particulate matter,” Colbert offered). The Magician’s Nephew gave her team the opposite challenge.
We have some of that, but also the challenge and the gift of being able to build something up and build a new world out of song, out of people’s art. Many of my collaborators told me that that was the most exciting thing, was this challenge of creation.
She said she wanted a set where people felt comfortable bringing their wildest ideas, because a story about a lion singing a world to life called for “the most outrageous creativity.” Rotten Tomatoes reports she described it as a safe space for stupidity. Her Barbie composers Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt were brought in early, since Aslan’s song is central to the book, and per NarniaWeb were even playing a piano on the set of Digory’s house.
Faith, film, and a pin made of silver
Colbert, who came to Lewis through his Christian writing rather than Narnia, asked how faith shapes Gerwig’s work. She pointed back to Lady Bird and her Catholic school upbringing, saying film and faith have always gone hand in hand for her, and that church, like the cinema, was a place where people gathered to experience something together.
She also described shooting on celluloid with cinematographer Seamus McGarvey as an act of faith in itself: you load the camera, shoot, send the film away, and hope it comes back in focus.
Then came the best detail of the day. Gerwig was wearing a silver pin of Aslan, with the apple tree that Magician’s Nephew readers will recognize, made from silver recovered from the film’s own celluloid. Her assistant director had it made for her.
This is literally the representation of the physical act of filmmaking, of the faith of filmmaking, of celluloid, and that I get to wear it felt fitting to me. Going to movies is faith. It’s gathering in the dark with strangers and putting yourself in a place of vulnerability with the potential to be transformed.
How Gerwig got “Stairway to Heaven”
The trailer’s biggest talking point is its music. Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and Jimmy Page are famously protective of “Stairway to Heaven”; Rolling Stone notes they turned down even Cameron Crowe for Almost Famous. Gerwig said she sees the song as a narrative about a spiritual journey: the true path, false idols, and the wrong roads you can take.
I was like, this is exactly the story of this movie. It really is a spiritual quest and a spiritual journey.
According to Gerwig, the band had never let the song be used before. She showed Plant and Page the film and talked them through it, and they agreed because they saw the heart of the story and share a reverence for Lewis.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – OCTOBER 13: Stephen Colbert and Greta Gerwig speak onstage at Netflix’s Narnia IMAX exclusive sneak peek event at AMC Lincoln Square 13 on October 13, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Netflix)
What she didn’t address
For all the ground covered, the Q&A steered clear of the biggest sticking points for skeptical fans. Gerwig didn’t discuss Meryl Streep’s casting as Aslan, and the trailer offers nothing beyond a roar, so we still haven’t heard her as the lion. There was also no mention of the move from the book’s 1900 setting to the 1950s, or of Jadis unleashing her magic in London, something she can’t do in the novel.
Reactions flood in: “Best in years” vs. “This is not Narnia”
If Gerwig’s case was aimed at the doubters, the early verdict suggests she’s won some over but not all.
Many viewers called it a standout trailer and felt it captured the book’s wonder with a bold twist. One reaction summed it up as: “The trailer for The Magician’s Nephew is, hands down, the best trailer I’ve seen in years. They’re definitely leaning into the pagan side of Narnia.” Another noted: “Man people were preemptively fuming over this one but I recognize just about every scene and every line [from the book]. Looks to be a very faithful adaptation with a sort of rock opera twist.” Others highlighted the birth-of-Narnia sequence and said Gerwig’s glam-rock, psychedelic approach felt fresh: “Greta Gerwig going full ‘Jim Henson’s Dark Crystal/Labyrinth + Chris Columbus’ Harry Potter + Led Zeppelin + blockbuster budget’ was not on my bingo card, but it looks fantastic.”
The most frequent pushback targets the trailer’s colorful, space-rock aesthetic and heavy CGI, which many compared to Marvel. Common quips included “Narnia: Ragnarok,” “They managed to Thor: Love & Thunder Narnia,” “Guardians of Narnia’s Galaxy,” and jokes that “Aslan the Lion will return in Avengers: Doomsday.”
Picture Credit: Netflix
Critics argued it stripped the source material of its atmosphere. One wrote: “Who’d have ever guessed that giving a legendary, beloved book series like The Chronicles of Narnia to modern Hollywood would result in a bizarre, disastrous fever dream interpretation with some of the worst-looking CGI backgrounds ever put on film?” Another said: “This is a prime example of how something can lose its soul to CGI overuse… The visuals of Netflix’s butchering of Narnia literally looks like it was made with AI.” A third added: “I am extremely unimpressed. This is not Narnia. This is Thor: Love and Thunder and Barbie had a baby. They make the boy a coward, they make the girl the adventurer, and Aslan is supposed to be the pinnacle of masculinity.”
On X, one user called it a “disgrace,” writing: “Anyone who defends this slop should be ashamed. They have disgraced C.S. Lewis.” Others flagged the glam-rock vibe as mismatched for the story and objected to Streep voicing Aslan, given the character’s traditional portrayal and Christian allegory associations. Some simply felt it didn’t read as Narnia at all: “Visually stunning trailer but nothing really jumped out to me indicating that this is a Narnia movie.”
The trailer on YouTube this morning sits at over 10 million views, with an extension suggesting it’s sitting at 54K likes and 25K dislikes.
It’s not only fans with reservations. On The Town podcast, Puck’s Matthew Belloni said he liked the trailer, enjoyed the rock opera angle, and trusts Gerwig, but warned that Netflix may be putting the cart before the horse with its marketing. He pointed to the poster’s “A Universe Begins” tagline, the trailer’s opening line about a story being the beginning of all the others, and the talk of “infinity worlds” as signs that Netflix is already selling a franchise.
You cannot tell the audience that this is a franchise. The audience has to tell you that this is a franchise.
Belloni cited Universal’s ill-fated Dark Universe, the canceled final Divergent movies, and Warner Bros.’ plans for an Avengers-style King Arthur universe as cautionary tales, and said that if he were Netflix, he’d be going hard on selling this one movie rather than trying to turn it into Harry Potter. He did see an upside in the move to February, though: it gave Gerwig the wide theatrical release she wanted, with less pressure than a summer slot.
Of course, when we first reported on Gerwig’s involvement in the movies, we wrote that she signed on for two movies. A second movie was rumored to begin production in late 2026, but there’s no indication this is still the case.
My take? It’s different. Very different. The sort of different you should expect if you draft in Greta Gerwig. We’ve seen many “franchises” come and go at Netflix (remember those Red Notice and The Gray Man sequels), but enough is stacked in its favor that it should work, though I do share the concerns that Netflix has put the cart before the horse with the messaging so far. Furthermore, I also have concerns about how it’s rolling out into theaters with such a robust window, and how that’ll then impact the Netflix viewership and perception of success/failure there. Netflix’s theatrical efforts over the next year will largely focus on awards and family movies, with the belief that repeat viewership will spread across both the initial release and when it drops onto Netflix. It’s going to be a huge litmus test on Netflix’s film strategy going forward.
On the quality of the film, it’s got stage play vibes mixed with Doctor Who vibes, but it looks visually impressive, and the two young leads look particularly strong. I’m not a die-hard book faithful, so I don’t have much to offer on that front, but I’m excited to see more.
Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew opens in IMAX and theaters worldwide on February 12, 2027, with IMAX-only sneak previews from February 10th, before streaming on Netflix on April 2, 2027.
What did you make of the trailer, and has Gerwig’s pitch changed your mind? Let us know in the comments.