New Delhi: Fans are set to return to the magical world of Narnia with the first trailer of Greta Gerwig’s upcoming 2027 film, which adapts the first of The Chronicles of Narnia series by CS Lewis.
Scored to Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ the two-minute and forty-one-second-long trailer opens with magician Andrew Ketterley (played by Daniel Craig), who says, “Sometimes one story is the beginning to all the others.”
In the trailer for Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew, one of the children asks the other, “Do you believe in magic?”, setting the tone for the remainder of the story.
The children, thanks to the magician’s magical rings, are transported to a wood full of pools leading to other worlds.
It also shows glimpses of the children stumbling upon and awakening Jadis (played by Emma Mackey), who later becomes the White Witch.
“Have you ever seen a world born?” a narrator then asks this before a glimpse of Aslan, the mythical lion voiced by Meryl Streep, can be seen singing Narnia to life.
The Magician’s Nephew (1955) is the first book in the series and follows two children, Digory and Polly, played by newcomers David McKenna and Beatrice Campbell. Set in Edwardian England, the story takes them to the Wood Between Worlds, a mysterious realm with portals to different dimensions, where they witness the birth of Narnia.
Speaking at the trailer premiere in New York, Gerwig shared her longstanding connection with Lewis’s books.
“I don’t remember a time I didn’t know the books. I wouldn’t be who I am without these books,” she told Variety.
The film is Gerwig’s first directorial project since Barbie (2023), which grossed over $1 billion worldwide.
The 2027 adaptation will get an eight-week theatrical run upon its release on 12 February. It will arrive on Netflix on 2 April, making it the platform’s first global theatrical release of this kind.
Gerwig said she told Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos that she only knew how to make films for the big screen.
“He said: ‘Make the movie for the biggest screen and trust the process,’” she recalled.
The director also revealed that she approached Led Zeppelin members Robert Plant and Jimmy Page to seek permission to use ‘Stairway to Heaven’ in the trailer; it is also the first time the song has ever been used in a film.
“I talked to them about a lot of the themes of the film. They saw the heart and the story and the drama in it. It’s an epic song. It’s about the two paths of good and evil,” Gerwig told Rolling Stone.
“It is a spiritual quest and a spiritual journey. So to me, this was a song that made sense to introduce the film to the world,” she added.