Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Jen Maravegias | Film | October 13, 2026
Greta Gerwig has earned a lot of goodwill as a film director. Her breakout hit, 2017’s Lady Bird, is “…like re-reading an old journal entry through a lens of simultaneous criticism and forgiveness, with an outpouring of love and the benefit of distance.”
In 2019, she gave us the “smartly reimagined and absolutely glorious” adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.
And, love it or hate it, her 2023 Barbie kinda pulled post-Covid cinema back from the brink of destruction.
We should have some faith in Greta, is what I’m saying. But I remember how excited we all were for Ava DuVernay’s A Wrinkle In Time, and how much of a messy letdown it was for some of us. It was more style than substance, and the trailer for Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew is giving me a similar vibe.
The Magician’s Nephew is a tough book to adapt. A lot of the story is about jumping into puddles in a mysterious, empty forest. Some of it takes place before the beginning of time itself. How do you capture that in a movie without overcompensating? See also the HBO adaptation of His Dark Materials. Sometimes, when you’re dealing with the metaphysical, less is better.
Or, you can set the trailer to ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and see what happens.
Emma Mackey (Ella McCay, Daniel Craig, and Meryl Streep, as the voice of Aslan, star with newcomers David McKenna and Beatrice Campbell when Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew is released in IMAX theaters on February 12th, 2027, and then on Netflix on April 2nd.
