“Have you ever seen a world born?”
Director Greta Gerwig could have made pretty much any movie she wanted after 2023’s Barbie racked up nearly $1.5 billion at the box office. She chose to make for Netflix, an adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ sixth novel in The Chronicles of Narnia series. Gerwig has said little publicly about the film, other than that she was inspired by 1960s-era David Bowie, although she said it would not be a musical. Netflix just released the trailer, set to “Stairway to Heaven,” and it’s quite the psychedelic ride.
The first book in the series, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, was published in 1950, and Lewis did not initially intend to write any more Narnia adventures. But then an acquaintance asked how the London lamppost ended up in the middle of Narnia’s woodland, and Lewis was intrigued enough by the question to start a prequel, The Magician’s Nephew, in order to find an answer. Lewis found it difficult to finish the book, however, writing four other Narnia books first before completing in 1955.
There have been several adaptations, in various media, of The Chronicles of Narnia, most recently the early 2000s film franchise adapting the first three novels in the series. Those films showed diminishing returns, however, and by 2011 the film rights had expired. There were initial plans to adapt the fourth novel, .
The original book was set in 1900, but Gerwig shifts the setting to the 1950s, postwar London. Digory Kirke (David McKenna) lives next door to Polly Plummer (Beatrice Campbell), and the two embark on a magical journey to other worlds after Digory’s eccentric uncle, Andrew Ketterley (Daniel Craig), tricks them into trying on magic rings. Then Digory accidentally unleashes the evil empress Jadis (Emma Mackey, who played Physicist Barbie in ) from a sleeping spell, and chaos breaks out.
The cast also includes Kobna Holdbrook-Smith as a London cabby named Frank; Ava Jager as Polly’s sister Violet; Carey Mulligan as Digory’s mother, Flora; Tom Bonington as Mr. Potts; Ciaran Hinds as the adult Digory; and Meryl Streep voicing Aslan. Denise Gough, Susan Wokoma, Gerard Monaco, James Murray, and Samantha Spiro also appear in as-yet-undisclosed roles.
will open in theaters on February 12, 2027. It will start streaming on Netflix on April 2, 2027. It’s the first Netflix film to have a wide theatrical release. Gerwig has a two-picture deal for the Netflix Narnia series, so we might get her take on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe next (assuming she’s following the books’ chronology).
