Its release may still be four months away, but the upcoming film “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” has certainly sparked a lot of conversation. Writer-director Greta Gerwig follows up her massively popular “Barbie” by adapting the sixth book is C.S. Lewis’ beloved Chronicles of Narnia series. But from all indications, Gerwig isn’t using her artistic prowess to bring Lewis’ original story to the screen. Instead she’s moving away from the Christian inspiration in favor of what’s being called a David Bowie-inspired “rock opera”.
The first trailer for “The Magician’s Nephew” starts grounded before turning into a CGI-soaked fever dream. Gerwig throws together some eye-catching images and it certainly has a rock-n-roll energy. But that doesn’t mean it will be a good Narnia movie. In fact, much of the trailer looks like something vastly different – part cosmic adventure and part 1980s music video. And while Gerwig sidesteps her controversial casting of Meryl Streep as Aslan, there’s still plenty in the new trailer to spark all kinds of debates.
“Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” opens in theaters on February 12, 2027. Check out the trailer and poster below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.
Good for Greta I say! (never read the whole Narnia thing so this looks/sounds fun to me).
I haven’t read them either. But I’m not sure a “David Bowie inspired rock opera” is what Lewis had in mind. But we shall see.😁
As a fan of CS Lewis not just for Narnia but also his Christian writings that have deeply impacted me, I honestly am not very impressed with this take on a beloved series of books that is clearly grounded and rooted deeply within Christian allegory without a doubt. So any betrayal of the basic story is a betrayal of Lewis in my personal opinion. The casting choices left me kind of perplexed as well and turning it into a rock opera is beyond anything that I could anticipate. If she the guts the Christian elements and turns it into nothing more than a fantasy of our own making then she should have invented a story of her own making. Lewis himself said that it’s clear that Aslan is Jesus Christ. There’s no ambiguous nature to this and if she turns into something else, it’s gross in my opinion. But then I don’t have much faith in Hollywood to take a Christian classic and turn it into a proper movie anyway, especially the lady that gave us Barbie which was absolutely rubbish.
My guess is that she’s going to use the basic outline but none of the allegorical richness that clearly defined Lewis’ work. I’m trying to stay optimistic but it’s not easy.
Will I see it , sure but my expectations are very low from what Ive seen plus after sitting through Barbie which was awful , my wife thought that was dreadful , Ill suffer through it I guess . Plus if she guts the faith of Lewis which is interwoven throughout the stories and turn it into a generic pagan type fantasy , well then she should have just written her own. I didn’t mind the 3 that where done and really enjoyed the Lion , The Witch and The Wardrobe . At least they did respect the source material. Plus it doesn’t bother me if a director takes a book and changes it and adds even to make the adaptation to the screen work but when they inject their own views so heavily as to jettison the authors intent or worldview as in Lewis Narnia , that is when I have a huge problem .
Probably not due to the CGI usage. Seems too much. I like the movie poster though.
The poster is cool, but yep, the CGI is kinda overwhelming.
I think it looks awesome. Plus, the usage of the music of the Mighty Zeppelin just drew me in. I guess the grandchildren of Zeppelin are fans of Greta Gerwig’s films. At least she didn’t use Greta Van Fleet aka Temu-Kingdom Come.
The Zeppelin add had the opposite effect on me. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. 🤣
Not a chance in heck…
😂😂😂