Greta Gerwig Wants Her 'Narnia' Film to Inspire New Generations

A new world is being created! The trailer for Narnia: The Magician's Nephew, the new film directed by Greta Gerwig, has just been released, and we had the chance to see a preview at an event with the filmmaker in an IMAX theater in New York.

Coming off the huge success of Barbie, it's clear that associating the director with her previous work is prominent, but not as much as the creator of the work, C.S. Lewis, whose words open the video while a hand unfastens a belt holding the blanket covering a familiar old wardrobe.

Two children, Dregory and Polly, are talking about the supposed madness of a man who appears in a garden. They are talking about Andrew Ketterley (Daniel Craig), who calls himself a magician. The children go up to the attic where he works, a truly magical place. Upon putting a ring on his finger, Dregory sees everything around him flying.

All this while "Stairway to Heaven" builds in speed and volume. And it's worth noting here that Led Zeppelin is one of the most difficult bands to license their songs. Greta said she showed it to Robert Plant and Jimmy Page , who are also fans of C.S. Lewis, and they created a song that, in the director's words, is "narrative, epic, and spiritual."

The video also shows fantastic worlds under construction. Hundreds of them. Infinite! "Some even unfinished," as the narration itself says. Before ending, comes the final question , "Have you ever seen a world being born?" , followed by a roar from Aslan, whose mane is fluttering, and an explosion that reveals the film's title and release date: February 11, 2027.

How it all began for Greta Gerwig's Narnia

Greta's devotion to the author predates her ability to read. In a conversation with Stephen Colbert, she said she can't remember a day in her life without knowing the world of Narnia. "First they read it to me, and when I learned to read, I kept revisiting the stories. They're part of my DNA," she said.

She explained that, like most people, she read the books in the order they were published. However, the idea of ​​restarting the franchise from the sixth book comes from the creator himself, C.S. Lewis. "That's where the story begins, where Narnia was created," she reflected.

The filmmaker shared how she landed the project: "It all comes from my passion for books. When my husband made Marriage Story for Netflix, I met Ted Sarandos at a party, already knowing they had the rights to the franchise," she recalled. Their conversation lasted about twenty minutes and ended with the Netflix boss asking if she would like to write the screenplay.

In her research, she said she went to Oxford, Cambridge, and Belfast, and reread not only the books in the franchise, but also his other works and even the books he liked and that influenced him. Having his family on the film set, Greta said she felt "kind of in communion with the creator who was part of his own creation."

Building a new world for Narnia

The director greatly praised the work of her entire team. "Filmmaking is the most collaborative thing that exists among artists," she said. For her, the film is a tribute to artistic creation. "The book is about creation and about inventing a world," she concluded.

At the event, a behind-the-scenes video was also shown, depicting part of this construction. It all obviously begins with the carving of the cabinet door and continues through gigantic sets.

One of the important collaborations is with musicians Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, who began writing the soundtrack even before the cameras started rolling. Greta recalled that she passed the music around to the actors and crew to get them in the mood, and that the musicians brought a piano to the set and composed other tracks on location. "It's a world that is born through music," she added.

Finally, Greta said that her film is about believing. "We filmed on film, and that in itself is an act of believing. We have to believe that everything will be in focus when the revelation returns," she reflected.

"Watching a finished film is about believing that you are in that dark room, entering a magical world imagined by someone," concluded the filmmaker.

The result will be seen on the big screen on February 11th, in an unprecedented 49-day window for a Netflix release. And from everything we've seen and heard, going to the cinema will be a magical experience.