Greta Gerwig’s First ‘Narnia’ Trailer Reveals Aslan

Netflix has opened the door to Greta Gerwig’s Narnia with the first trailer for The Magician’s Nephew. The preview introduces young Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer, whose encounter with a collection of magical rings sends them beyond Edwardian England and into the creation story of C.S. Lewis’s fantasy world.

David McKenna plays Digory opposite Beatrice Campbell as Polly. The trailer also offers the first substantial look at Daniel Craig as the eccentric Uncle Andrew and Emma Mackey as Jadis, the ruler who will become the White Witch. Carey Mulligan appears as Digory’s mother, while Meryl Streep voices Aslan, the lion at the center of Narnia’s origin.

A rare song choice for an origin story

One of the trailer’s biggest surprises is its use of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” a song Robert Plant and Jimmy Page have historically licensed sparingly. At the New York presentation, Gerwig said the musicians watched the film and connected with its heart, drama and spiritual themes before approving the track.

The imagery moves from Uncle Andrew’s laboratory to the Wood Between the Worlds, a winged horse and Jadis wielding a wand. It ends with Aslan emerging from cosmic dust, emphasizing that this installment is not another visit to an established kingdom but an account of how Narnia begins.

Netflix gives the film an unusually large theatrical window

Gerwig began developing early drafts in 2020, before Barbie turned her into a blockbuster filmmaker. She has described the project as both intimate and enormous: a story about lonely children presented on the largest possible canvas. That ambition is also shaping the release plan.

The Magician’s Nephew is scheduled to begin a five-week theatrical run on February 12, 2027, before arriving on Netflix on April 2. The wide cinema rollout is a first for a Netflix movie and makes the trailer more than a routine streaming preview. It is the first full test of whether Gerwig’s version of Lewis’s world can launch a new big-screen franchise while preserving the strange, child-centered quality of the book that starts Narnia’s chronology.