Through The Wardrobe
Greta Gerwig’s Narnia Trailer Teases A Big Departure From The Books
The filmmaker is giving the beloved fantasy series a rock-and-roll spin.
Greta Gerwig’s follow-up to Barbie is coming soon, and it takes place in a very different (but just as fantastical) universe.
Netflix dropped the first trailer for Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew, Gerwig’s adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ prequel to his Chronicles of Narnia books, on Oct. 13.
“I was a child when I first read The Magician’s Nephew, and I fell in love with the gorgeously improbable but completely brilliant concept of a cosmic lion singing the world of Narnia to life,” Gerwig said in a statement shared by Netflix. “I didn’t know that I would grow up to make films, but a universe built out of music is an idea that always lived in my heart.”
The trailer leans into that idea with a rock-and-roll spirit, a major departure from the previous Narnia films. Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” plays as young friends Polly and Digory (Beatrice Campbell and David McKenna) take a vibrant trip through Narnia's beginnings. The band had never let the song be used in a film before, Gerwig said during a Q&A at an IMAX sneak peek of the movie. The trailer also offers a first look at other key characters, including Digory’s Uncle Andrew (Daniel Craig), the White Witch (Emma Mackey), and Aslan the Lion (voiced by Meryl Streep).
“Because of C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, I believed in magic and hidden worlds and adventure,” Gerwig said. “I believed that anywhere could be enchanted and that anyone could be swept up into an epic. That wonder and awe was available to everyone, even ordinary people like me … it transformed me.”
Classic rock isn’t the only way Gerwig is putting her own spin on Narnia. As the trailer shows and as the filmmaker teased in a recent interview with Empire, this version of The Magician’s Nephew is set in the 1950s. Lewis’ prequel originally took place in the early 1900s, which set up The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to unfold during World War II.
The timeline change suggests Gerwig’s future Narnia movies could land closer to modern times. Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew arrives in theaters on Feb. 12, 2027, followed by its Netflix release on April 2, 2027.
