Greta Gerwig’s Netflix adaptation of C. S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew is being framed as something louder and stranger than a standard prestige fantasy. In remarks reported from Empire’s first-look coverage, Gerwig said she wanted a “rock opera” that feels “big and transporting” — while stressing that the film is not a musical in the sung-through Broadway sense.
The distinction matters for how audiences should hear the project. Gerwig is describing an aesthetic and narrative DNA drawn from rock culture, not a catalogue of show-tune set pieces. Secondary coverage of the Empire interview says she pointed to David Bowie, Paul McCartney, David Gilmour, Pete Townshend, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, with nods to British glam of the 1960s and 1970s.
A world made out of music
Gerwig’s conceptual link is blunt: Narnia, in Lewis’s creation myth, is a world sung into being, and rock’n’roll is itself “a world made out of music.” That parallel is the bridge between children’s fantasy and glam-era swagger. Coverage of the Empire conversation describes the story’s human setting shifted from the turn of the twentieth century to 1950s Great Britain, with other realms visually and tonally inspired by the glam scene rather than strictly period fairy-tale illustration.
The result, if the finished film matches the pitch, would be less museum-Wardrobe nostalgia and more a portal fantasy filtered through album-cover mythology — stained glass, mosaic light, and rock iconography as design language rather than cameo karaoke.
Meryl Streep’s Aslan, redesigned
Empire’s first look also centres a major casting and design break with the Disney-era films: Aslan is voiced by Meryl Streep, not Liam Neeson. Reporting on the reveal describes a mosaic and stained-glass look with a rock-album finish, mismatched eyes, and a red facial marking that references Bowie — an emblem, not a celebrity likeness pasted onto a lion.
Streep’s casting signals that Gerwig wants Aslan to read as mythic and uncanny rather than as a straight reprise of the earlier screen lion. For franchise watchers, it is also a clear separation from the 2000s film cycle even as the books remain the source.
February 2027 theaters, then Netflix
Netflix’s Tudum site has set the theatrical plan in public: IMAX sneak previews begin about 10 February 2027, with a wide theatrical release on 12 February 2027, followed by Netflix streaming on 2 April 2027. That window confirms the project as a cinema event first, then a platform title — a hybrid release pattern Netflix has used for other large films.
The cast list published alongside the date slate includes newcomers David McKenna and Beatrice Campbell with Emma Mackey, Carey Mulligan, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Daniel Craig and Streep among the headline names. Gerwig writes and directs; Mark Gordon, Amy Pascal, Vincent Sieber-Smith and Gerwig produce.
Score: Ronson and Wyatt
Tudum also confirms an original score by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, Gerwig’s Barbie music collaborators, with George Drakoulias as music supervisor. That pairing fits the rock-opera language without requiring the film to become a jukebox musical. Whether the finished soundtrack leans anachronistic 1960s–70s rock, as some secondary reports have suggested, will be clearer closer to release; the studio’s verified credit is the Ronson–Wyatt score itself.
What “not a musical” is protecting
Gerwig’s insistence that the film is not a musical is a marketing and creative guardrail. It tells viewers expecting song-and-dance Narnia to recalibrate, while still licensing the glam, guitar and album-art vocabulary she has put on the record. For Netflix and theatrical partners, it also positions The Magician’s Nephew as event cinema with a distinct directorial signature rather than as a family musical slot-filler.
The verified package, then, is this: a 1950s-shifted origin story; a rock-opera aesthetic inspired by Bowie and British glam; Streep as a redesigned Aslan; theaters in February 2027; Netflix in April; and a Ronson–Wyatt score. Whether that mix converts Lewis loyalists and new audiences alike will be answered in IMAX seats first — and on the service two months later.