The First Trailer For The Magician’s Nephew Suggests a Psychedelic Take on C. S. Lewis

I’ve been avoiding the hullabaloo surrounding Greta Gerwig’s upcoming adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew, the sixth novel in C. S. Lewis’s beloved Chronicles of Narnia that serves as a prequel for all of the other stories. Gerwig’s selection as director was not without controversy, as was her decision to cast Meryl Streep as Aslan’s voice. But I wanted to hold off on any judgment until the first trailer dropped, and we got a glimpse of Gerwig’s adaptation in action.

Now that it’s here, though, I confess I’m a bit perplexed.

It doesn’t look bad, but I wasn’t expecting a Narnia film to look so, well, MCU-ish. The flashy style on display looks like something out of Thor: Love and Thunder, which is certainly an… interesting choice, especially for the scenes set on the dead city of Charn, the original home of Jadis (aka, the White Witch). And speaking of Jadis, who’s played by Emma Mackey, I don’t ever recall picturing her so glammed out when I last read Lewis’s novel.

After Barbie and Little Women, though, I’m inclined to give Gerwig the benefit of the doubt. Who knows, her unexpected ideas might turn out to be just the thing to capture the novel’s otherworldliness. (Case in point: The trailer’s final shot, of Aslan beginning to create Narnia, looks awesome.) As Steven Greydanus writes, we should never hold a beloved childhood classic so tight that we’re unwilling to accept any new ideas or concepts. Have we learned nothing from Star Wars?

The Magician’s Nephew will arrive in theaters on February 12, 2027 and begin streaming on Netflix on April 2, 2027.