Greta Gerwig’s “Narnia” movie for Netflix is being pushed out of 2026 into 2027, but there’s a silver lining. The film will now be released with an “expanded, wide release.”
Gerwig’s film, which is now titled “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew,” will release in IMAX and globally in a wide release on February 12, 2027 with sneak previews beginning in IMAX only on February 10. It will then release on Netflix on April 2, 2027, the streamer announced.
“Narnia” was meant to open in theaters over Thanksgiving and then wind up on Netflix by Christmas. The idea for Netflix has been to do more “event” releases rather than go all out with theatrical, and pegging it to the holidays would have been ideal. Thanksgiving, though, is a crowded window in which a lot of tentpole movies are vying for IMAX and PLF screens, including “Dune Part III” and “Avengers: Doomsday” a couple of weeks later. By moving the film to February, Netflix gives it a wider berth exclusively in IMAX and also a slightly longer theatrical window. That said, it removes it from a prime Oscar contention window, as all three of Gerwig’s films have been major contenders at the Academy Awards in the past.
Netflix still won’t ever say that it’s going all-in on theaters, but it was making promises of 45 day theatrical windows when it was looking to acquire Warner Bros., and Gerwig is a big enough filmmaker that has been able to demand Netflix move out of its comfort zone. It remains to be seen what box office figures Netflix will report for “Narnia,” but it figures to be a major title (the three “Narnia” films from the 2000s together made well over $1 billion at the box office) without a lot of competition around it. “Ice Age: Boiling Point” opens one week before “Narnia,” and it opens the same day as Sony/TriStar’s “The Nightingale.”
“Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” stars newcomers David McKenna and Beatrice Campbell alongside Emma Mackey, Carey Mulligan, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Ciarán Hinds, Daniel Craig, Meryl Streep, Denise Gough, and Susan Wokoma.
“Working with Netflix to bring this film to life has been extraordinary and IMAX continues to be an incredible partner. I cannot wait for people to see the film in theaters on February 12 and on Netflix on April 2,” said Gerwig.
She continued: “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. It is the honor of a lifetime to be asked to imagine it into being. Because of C. S. Lewis’s ‘The Chronicles of Narnia,’ I believed in magic and hidden worlds and adventure. I believed that anywhere could be enchanted and that anyone could be swept up into an epic. That wonder and awe was available to everyone, even ordinary people like me… It transformed me.”
“From the outset, we got involved with ‘Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew’ to support Greta Gerwig and see her vision realized to the fullest in IMAX. The film’s delay until 2027 creates an opportunity to give Narnia an expanded, wide release with a full theatrical window; we support Greta and Netflix in pursuing that opportunity and are pleased IMAX could help facilitate. We hope as many people in as many places as possible can experience what Greta is creating with this special film — particularly in its exclusive debut in IMAX, as it was meant to be seen,” added IMAX brass.
C.S. Lewis’ book, first released in 1955 and the sixth book in the series released, is the first chronologically in the timeline of the Narnia universe, and it is the first time this specific book will be adapted to the screen following three “Narnia” movies from the 2000s. The book “shows how all the comings and goings between our own world and the land of Narnia first began,” per the opening lines of the book and would build to “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.”
Here’s the official logline: “Academy Award–nominated filmmaker Greta Gerwig brings C. S. Lewis’s beloved story ‘The Magician’s Nephew’ to the screen for the first time in a sweeping adventure that invites dreamers of all ages to experience the creation of Narnia.”
“Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” is produced by Mark Gordon, Amy Pascal, Vincent Sieber-Smith, and Gerwig, and executive produced by Patricia Whitcher and Douglas Gresham and Melvin Adams for the C. S. Lewis Estate. The film is co-produced by Christine Crais. The movie will feature an original score by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, who previously worked with Gerwig on “Barbie,” and music supervision by George Drakoulias.
“It’s incredibly moving to see how deeply Greta Gerwig has embraced C. S. Lewis’s world, and infused ‘Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew’ with joy, heart, and genuine love for the story,” said the C. S. Lewis Company. “We’re so excited for audiences everywhere to experience her vision — and to share the magic of Narnia with a whole new generation.”
