Earlier this week, Netflix released its first trailer for its $300 million production of Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew, and the response has been pretty negative.
Narnia is guaranteed a lengthy and widespread theatrical rollout starting on February 12 before it finally arrives on Netflix. This means it will be judged by its box office results. Also at stake is an entire franchise.
There are seven Narnia books, and there is little doubt Netflix would like this to become its own Harry Potter.
Stephen Colbert and Greta Gerwig speak onstage at Netflix’s Narnia IMAX exclusive sneak peek event at AMC Lincoln Square 13 on October 13, 2026 in New York City. (Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Netflix)
Why in heaven’s name, then, did Netflix hand the first chapter to Greta Gerwig, a writer-director who is not Christian, and whose entire reason for being is to fight the patriarchy?
Gerwig is not even being subtle. The central figure in the Narnia series, Aslan the lion, is not only a male lion, he is a stand-in for Christ. But what did Gerwig do? She hired Meryl Streep to voice a male lion and the story’s Christ figure.
Here’s another example: a man named C.S. Lewis wrote the Narnia series and here’s the man-hating Gerwig taking direct aim at his and J.R.R. Tolkien’s legacy:
This is not a director who respects the source material. In fact, as we have seen with so many beloved franchises, Gerwig is yet another hire who hates the source material, resents it, and most especially resents its creator and his fans. Why else would she deliberately stick a finger in our collective eyes?
Netflix’s problems go beyond even the Christian fan base. Numerous outlets report that this has been a troubled production from the beginning, with terrible test scores, expensive reshoots, and internal tensions between Gerwig and Netflix executives.
Then there’s the general reaction from the overall public…
Even on the official Netflix site, the trailer is, at best, receiving mixed reviews that have nothing to do with its apparently heresy. After a full day, it has received only 75K likes, but also 43K dislikes. Not a good ratio for a $300 million investment.
Watch for yourself:
My first thoughts were two-fold: 1) Any juice created by the trailer is coming from Led Zeppelin and 2) it looks like a screensaver.
The most popular YouTube comments are brutal and dead on:
- Aslan the Great Lion will return in Avengers: Doomsday
- Narnians of the Galaxy
- Narnia: Love and Thunder
In other words, it looks like just another Marvel movie, and not a good one.
- “What the hell is even that?” C.S Lewis said, calmly.
- This is a movie about two British kids discovering their uncle’s secret LSD lab and I won’t accept any other explanation.
- “coming to a theater near you” is that a threat?
- So Netflix watched Disney’s Wrinkle in Time and said, “Hold my beer”?
- Lets take C.S Lewis and make it a imitation of a corporate soulless marvel movie
- Netflix has guts for keeping the comments section open…
And on and on it goes like that….
Another interesting thing is the February release date. If Netflix had solid confidence in this, it would be the perfect Christmas release. Instead, it’s headed for a month that is widely seen as a dumping ground for movies not expected to perform well.
At this point, after what we have been through over the last decade, I don’t know why anyone who is a fan of something would subject themselves to a Narnia or a Lanterns or a Star Wars or a whatever. The point is not to entertain you. The point is to shame and insult you for daring to enjoy these franchises.
“Evil cannot create anything new; it can only corrupt and ruin what good forces have invented or made” — is a quote attributed to Tolkien. He might not have said it exactly, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.