Gerwig's Narnia Trailer Is Here. Christian Families Should Watch Closely.

"Have you ever seen a world born?"

That question, spoken over the first trailer for Greta Gerwig's Narnia: The Magician's Nephew, is a fair summary of what C.S. Lewis was doing when he wrote the book in 1955. It is the Narnia creation story. And on Tuesday, Netflix gave the world its first real look at how a director best known for Barbie intends to tell it.

For millions of Christian families who grew up with Lewis, it is the biggest entertainment story of the week. It deserves a hopeful look and a careful one.

What the trailer shows

Netflix released the trailer Oct. 13 after an IMAX preview at New York's AMC Lincoln Square hosted by Stephen Colbert, Variety reported. It follows Digory and Polly, played by newcomers David McKenna and Beatrice Campbell, as Digory's uncle Andrew, played by Daniel Craig, hands them magic rings that carry them out of our world. They meet Jadis, the future White Witch, played by Emma Mackey, and Fledge, the flying horse. The trailer ends with Aslan going from a starry blur to a lion, roaring Narnia into being, as Entertainment Weekly described it.

The cast also includes Carey Mulligan and Ciarán Hinds, according to Netflix. Douglas Gresham, Lewis's stepson, is an executive producer for the C.S. Lewis estate.

The film opens in IMAX and theaters worldwide Feb. 12, 2027, with IMAX sneak previews starting Feb. 10, and arrives on Netflix April 2. It is Netflix's first movie with a global theatrical release, Variety noted, and it will play in theaters for 49 days before streaming, The Hollywood Reporter reported.

The Searcher, Ross Wilson's statue of C.S. Lewis at a wardrobe, in Lewis's hometown of Belfast. Photo: Genvessel / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

Gerwig, in her own words

Gerwig told the New York audience she has loved the books all her life. "I don't remember a time I didn't know the books," she said. "I wouldn't be who I am without these books."

She said she pitched Netflix chief Ted Sarandos on starting with The Magician's Nephew, the first book in Narnia's timeline, at a cocktail party. "About 20 minutes later he said, 'Do you want to write it?'"

The trailer is set to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," a band famously stingy about licensing its music. Gerwig said she wrote to Robert Plant and Jimmy Page and showed them an early cut. Her explanation of the choice is revealing: "It's an epic song, and narratively, about a spiritual journey, a path of fake idols and wrong roads you can go down," she said, according to Variety.

The question Christians will ask

Lewis was clear about who Aslan is. In a Dec. 29, 1958, letter to a Mrs. Hook, published in Letters of C.S. Lewis, he said Aslan was his imaginary answer to the question, "What might Christ become like if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?" The letter is quoted in full by The Gospel Coalition.

That is why one casting choice stands out. Aslan, whom Lewis always wrote as "he," is voiced by Meryl Streep. Her casting was confirmed last month in an Empire cover story, which still refers to Aslan as "he," as What's on Netflix reported. Streep is one of the great actors of her generation, and no one should judge a two-hour film by a two-minute trailer. But Lewis's Aslan is not a generic spirit of nature. He is a picture of the Son of God, the one through whom all things were made. Giving him a woman's voice is not a small creative flourish. It is a choice about how audiences will picture the Christ figure at the heart of the story, and Christian parents are right to notice it.

The book also carries themes Hollywood does not always get right: a boy tempted to grab power for his dying mother's sake, a vain magician who treats children as experiments, a queen who destroyed her own world with a single word, and a Creator who sings a world into being and, in the end, gives a grieving boy a gift of grace. If Gerwig keeps that heart, this could be the most important Narnia film yet.

Wait, watch, then decide

Gerwig said she hopes audiences "laugh," "cry" and "feel like they've been on an adventure," and that they leave wanting to make something. "Making something is an act of hope," she said.

That is a line Lewis himself might have liked. The best way for Christian families to respond to this film is not with an early boycott or early cheering, but with the books. Read The Magician's Nephew with your kids before February. Then, when the movie comes, they will know the real story well enough to see what Gerwig kept, what she changed, and why it matters.

Hero photo: Magdalen College, Oxford, by Diliff via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped and resized. Statue photo: Genvessel via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0, resized.