Gerwig Bets Narnia’s Rebirth on Stairway and Theaters

Greta Gerwig scored her Narnia trailer with Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, a song Jimmy Page and Robert Plant have long kept off movie screens. Netflix unveiled the preview on Oct. 13, then pointed it at a Feb. 12, 2027 theatrical opening the company has never run at this width, with the film due on the service on April 2, 2027.

The bet is stacked, not simple. Gerwig wants a universe built out of music, an origin book most screen versions skipped, and a theater window the streamer spent years treating as a tactic. The trailer is how she is selling all three at once.

Page and Plant Cleared Stairway After Seeing a Cut

At an Oct. 13 screening in the IMAX theater at AMC Lincoln Square in New York, Gerwig told Stephen Colbert she went to Page and Plant herself. She talked through the film’s themes, showed them a cut, and found two musicians who already knew C. S. Lewis. “They saw the heart and the story and the drama in it,” she said.

That yes is the rare piece. Page and Plant have routinely turned down onscreen use of Stairway to Heaven, including when Cameron Crowe asked for Almost Famous in 2000. Gerwig got the song for this preview after putting the picture in front of them, which is a different ask than a phone call from a music supervisor.

It’s an epic song. It’s about the two paths of good and evil. 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.

Greta Gerwig, writer-director, speaking with Stephen Colbert

The license is confirmed for the trailer. Gerwig’s phrasing, introduce the film to the world, is campaign language, not a credit on the finished mix. Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt are still writing the original score, with George Drakoulias supervising music, so the Zeppelin drop is the door, not the whole house.

Netflix’s First Wide Theatrical Window

Netflix is handling North America. Sony Pictures Entertainment is taking the rest of the world. IMAX sneak previews begin Feb. 10, 2027, two days before the wide opening, and the streamer then waits 49 days before April 2. For a company that has long treated cinemas as a limited showcase, that gap is the policy change hiding under the lion.

The path was not clean. Netflix had aimed at a Thanksgiving 2026 IMAX run, with a November 26 start, then a Christmas Day debut on the service. Production delays knocked that plan out. On May 1, 2026, the company moved the film to February and, with IMAX’s backing, used the extra months for a full theatrical window instead of a short, exclusive blowout.

Ted Sarandos had told Gerwig to make the movie for the biggest screen she could imagine. She has said she only knows how to make movies for theaters, and she took him at his word. IMAX, for its part, said the delay created a chance at an expanded, wide release, and that it was pleased to help.

HOW THE RELEASE WINDOW GREW

1. 2020: Gerwig begins her earliest drafts of The Magician’s Nephew, before Barbie.
2. May 1, 2026: Netflix drops a Thanksgiving IMAX plan and sets a wide opening for Feb. 12, 2027.
3. Oct. 13, 2026: The first trailer debuts at AMC Lincoln Square, with the audience in light-up rings timed to the preview.
4. Feb. 10, 2027: Sneak previews begin in IMAX only.
5. Feb. 12, 2027: The film opens in theaters worldwide.
6. April 2, 2027: The film arrives on Netflix.

Exhibitors who wanted a real run, not a two-week teaser, got one. Gerwig got the sequence she keeps describing: see it large, then watch it again at home. Netflix got a test of whether a streamer can still open a family fantasy like a studio.

Why Gerwig Starts Before the Wardrobe

The Magician’s Nephew, published in 1955, is the sixth Narnia book Lewis released and the first in story time. It follows Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer from London into other worlds, into the path of Jadis, and into the moment a lion sings Narnia into being. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, published in 1950, is the book most viewers already know. Gerwig asked to start earlier.

She made that pitch before she had a blockbuster on her résumé. After Noah Baumbach made Marriage Story for Netflix, she learned the streamer held the Narnia rights, then made a beeline for Sarandos at a cocktail party. About 20 minutes later he asked if she wanted to write the film. She had Lady Bird and Little Women behind her. She did not yet have Barbie.

Lewis later suggested readers begin with The Magician’s Nephew, and Gerwig treated that as a production order, not a footnote. Newcomers David McKenna and Beatrice Campbell play Digory and Polly. Gerwig has said she watched them find each other in groups of children, and that in one screentest pause Campbell sniffled and McKenna reached for a tissue. That small care is the scale she keeps insisting can live inside a huge frame.

Emma Mackey plays Jadis, the queen who will become the White Witch. Carey Mulligan plays Digory’s mother. Daniel Craig is the uncle, the magician of the title. Meryl Streep voices Aslan. Ciarán Hinds, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Denise Gough, and Susan Wokoma round out the company. Douglas Gresham and Melvin Adams executive produce for the C. S. Lewis Estate, with Mark Gordon, Amy Pascal, Vincent Sieber-Smith, and Gerwig producing.

Three Films, Then a Long Quiet Stretch

Walden Media already tried this world on a studio schedule. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe still sits at the top of Walden Media’s catalog. Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader followed, and each time the domestic opening shrank. The worldwide figures for those three films show a first peak, then a plateau that never climbed back.

THE WALDEN NARNIA CYCLE

Together they took in $1.56 billion worldwide, then the screen rights cycle went idle. Disney walked after Caspian. Fox finished Dawn Treader on a tighter budget. Starting on the origin book is Gerwig’s way of not climbing in through the same wardrobe those three films already used.

Ronson and Wyatt Score a World Being Born

The music bet did not begin with Zeppelin. Gerwig has said she fell in love, as a child, with the idea of a cosmic lion singing Narnia into existence, and that a universe built out of music stayed with her even before she knew she would make films. Ronson and Wyatt, who scored Barbie, began work in pre-production and played material for the cast on set. That is a composer in the room, not a temp track slapped on a trailer.

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. 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.

Greta Gerwig, writer-director, Netflix announcement

The seven Narnia books have sold more than 120 million copies across 70 countries and have been translated into more than 60 languages. Netflix is not introducing a niche title. It is asking a mass readership to accept a creation scene scored like a rock pilgrimage, then to trust Streep’s Aslan to carry the hymn Lewis wrote as a lion’s song.

Seamus McGarvey is shooting it. James Chinlund is designing the world. Jacqueline Durran is on costumes. Neal Scanlan is running creature effects, and Paul Franklin is supervising visual effects. The craft list reads like a bid for the large format Gerwig keeps naming, not for a quiet streamer drop.

The Trailer’s 1900-to-1971 Collision

The preview opens in somber, gray London, then dumps Digory, Polly, and the magician’s rings into color, talking beasts, and a flying horse Gerwig has called her favorite thing to shoot. Stairway carries the back half. Mackey’s Jadis opens her eyes, lifts a sword, and rides through London in metallic couture that looks closer to a Soho night than to Edwardian dress. That clash is what people are already arguing about, months before a ticket goes on sale.

WHAT THE PREVIEW PUTS IN THE SAME FRAME

• Gray London: Digory hears that his “mad” uncle Andrew is a magician, then learns the claim is true.
• The rings: Children leave one world for another, which is the book’s engine and the trailer’s cut.
• Jadis in the streets: Mackey’s witch does not wait for Narnia; she tears through the city on horseback in shining clothes.
• A world born: Color, animals, and a lion’s outline arrive as the Zeppelin track climbs.
• The tagline: A universe begins, which is also the line on the poster.

Some of that collision is the point. A 1971 spiritual quest sitting on a 1900 street tells you Gerwig is not rebuilding the 2005 snow-and-wardrobe look. It also hands critics a ready objection: that the rock hymn, the go-go witch, and the creation spectacle belong to her, not to Lewis. Faithful readers are already calling the tone a breach. Others are pausing on single shots and deciding the cosmic-rock register can still carry wonder. The trailer is doing that sorting work early, which is useful for a film that cannot hide behind the Pevensies.

Streep’s Aslan is part of the same dare. The lion is the author of the world in this book, and the trailer withholds a clean run of that voice while letting the Zeppelin lyric do the talking. If the finished film needs the lion to sing Narnia into being, the score has to win a job the needle drop is only advertising.

IMAX Previews Begin Feb. 10

Netflix is billing a global cinema event, with sneak previews only in IMAX on Feb. 10, 2027, the wide opening on Feb. 12, and the service date on April 2. Gerwig’s own line on the partnership is plain: working with Netflix has been extraordinary, IMAX remains an incredible partner, and she cannot wait for people to see the film in theaters and then on the service.

She has also said she wants people leaving the cinema thinking they love watching movies there, that they cannot wait to come back, and that they will then watch this one at home. That is the wager restated as a habit she wants to teach. The Stairway clearance, the origin-book order, and the 49-day gap are the tools. February is when we find out if anyone walks through.