Netflix released the first trailer for Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew on October 13, and a day later Jeff Sneider’s newsletter The InSneider claimed that test screenings of the film went badly. The trailer sets Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” over a story that opens in 1900, Meryl Streep voices Aslan, and the budget has been put at $280 million. Viewers who have only seen two minutes of footage are already saying it is not Narnia.
What the InSneider Says Is Wrong Behind the Scenes
Sneider’s October 14 post describes tension around the film at Netflix, where film executive Doug Belgrad, formerly of Sony’s movie studio, is out. According to the newsletter, some people at Netflix consider Narnia awful and a real problem for the company. A source who attended a summer test screening compared the film to Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time from 2018, which reportedly lost close to $100 million. Gerwig is said to have clashed with Netflix film chief Dan Lin, and she is said to have outside help in the editing room. Lin and chief content officer Bela Bajaria are rumored to be on thin ice as the streamer’s engagement numbers fall, and the post landed on a day Netflix had layoffs.
The budget in that post is $280 million, with some sources saying the true number is higher. That matches what cinematographer Seamus McGarvey said on the About Oscar podcast in August, when he put the cost at $280 million.
The test screening story is not new. In early August Sneider reported that screenings of an unfinished two-hour cut had underwhelmed Netflix executives and that reshoots had been set up. Netflix, not Gerwig, was said to be the one asking for the extra work. A source close to the production told NarniaWeb it was additional photography, not reshoots, and that the principal cast was not involved. None of the claims has been confirmed by Netflix.
“A Movie That Isn’t Narnia”
Reacher actor Matthew Marsden said: “Looks like a great trailer for a movie that isn’t Narnia.”
Pop culture commentator Jacob Airy said: “The trailer for Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew looks like it was made by people who have never read the book.”
YouTuber Matt Jarbo, who said he did not want to dog on the film before seeing it, put it this way: “Look, I don’t wanna dog on it before seeing the movie. It just feels so tonally weird. Having a Led Zeppelin song playing over visuals that were meant to take place during the early 1900’s is a choice, but I don’t think it was a good one. This doesn’t feel like the previous NARNIA films at all, and I get that this is Gerwig doing her BARBIE thing here. BUT I can’t help but feeling “whelmed” by it all.”
Other viewers sounded the same note. One wrote, “I am extremely unimpressed. This is not Narnia.” Another wrote, “Visually stunning trailer but nothing really jumped out to me indicating that this is a Narnia movie.” Some compared the look to Thor: Love and Thunder and Guardians of the Galaxy.
The trailer has its defenders. One viewer called it “hands down, the best trailer I’ve seen in years,” and another saw “a very faithful adaptation with a sort of rock opera twist.” Puck’s Matthew Belloni, on The Town podcast, said he liked it and trusts Gerwig, but warned Netflix about the marketing: “You cannot tell the audience that this is a franchise. The audience has to tell you that this is a franchise.”
The trailer had passed 10 million YouTube views at last count, with about 54,000 likes against 25,000 dislikes.
A Woman as Aslan and a Rock Opera in 1900
Streep was announced as the voice of Aslan in September. Gerwig told Empire she wanted someone with “a wisdom of experience” and “the capacity of fresh wonder.” Neither she nor Netflix has said whether Aslan will be female on screen, but the lion is Lewis’s figure for Christ, and critics took the casting as a sex swap of that figure. Political commentator Isabel Brown wrote on X: “CS Lewis literally intended Aslan to be the incarnation of Christ.” Movieguide founder Ted Baehr said: “Theologically this is a tremendous heresy and it’s a tremendous problem.” A Change.org petition with thousands of signatures asks that Gerwig be removed from future Narnia films.
The families of Lewis’s stepsons David and Douglas Gresham, who hold his estate rights, issued a statement through Netflix backing her: “we have personally witnessed her sincere passion for the Narnia series.”
The music is just as deliberate. Gerwig told Empire she wanted a rock opera, built from the origin story Lewis wrote, and said that she wondered how David Jones became David Bowie unless he went to Narnia. The film is not a musical, but British rock of the 1960s and 70s is its backbone, with Bowie, McCartney, Gilmour, Townshend, Page and Plant named as influences. The anachronism is intentional, in the manner of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. In the trailer, Aslan appears as an image that evokes a cosmic nebula, and Page and Plant had reportedly never licensed “Stairway to Heaven” for a film before.
What Is Riding on It
Netflix bought the Narnia rights from the Lewis estate in 2018 and signed Gerwig to write and direct, with the plan of building a franchise. The last big-screen run was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in 2005, followed by Prince Caspian in 2008 and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 2010. The Magician’s Nephew is the prequel, and it was first slated for November 2026. Netflix moved it to February 12, 2027 in theaters and IMAX, with streaming following on April 2, and told the trades only that it “just wasn’t ready to hit that date.”
The cast includes Daniel Craig, Carey Mulligan, Emma Mackey and Ciarán Hinds, with Streep as Aslan and newcomers David McKenna and Beatrice Campbell as the children. At $280 million, it would be among the most expensive films Netflix has made, and it has to satisfy two audiences at once: viewers who grew up on Lewis and a streamer whose engagement numbers are falling.
With viewers saying “not Narnia” after two minutes of footage and sources saying the same after the whole film, will Netflix move the February 12 date again, or send a $280 million prequel into theaters as it stands?
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My wife, who is just reading the books, told me that the moment Aslan begins his creation work was butchered and that it looked less that sublime compared to the book. She agreed with the visual choices of the first 20 seconds or so (the moody London setting and the ring powered world travelling), and then it went downhill for her. She has read me full sections from the book and I saw almost nothing that sounded like the words written on the paper. I won't make my mind before watching the film itself, however, I think I'll just read the books after my wife is done with them.