Narnia fans angry over Greta Gerwig's 'The Magician's Nephew' trailer: 'She lost her soul to CGI'

Greta Gerwig's highly anticipated adaptation of C.S. Lewis's popular series has drawn mixed reactions, from 'the best trailer I've seen in years' to 'a bizarre and disastrous fever dream.'

Adapted from C.S.'s favorite children's book series. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia, is no easy feat, and it's certainly ripe for some discussion online.

So it's probably no surprise that the trailer (below) for Netflix's adaptation of The Witch's Nephew — tentatively the first novel in Lewis's seven-book series — has had a strong reaction on social media.

The adaptation had met with initial backlash among conservative media figures prior to the release of the trailer, as the Christian parable was being adapted by Barbie writer-director Greta Gerwig, who also made the ironic decision to cast Meryl Streep as the voice of Jesus' character Aslan.

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Now the trailer for Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew has been released in all its glitzy rock glory, set to Led Zeppelin’s famously difficult-to-license song “Stairway to Heaven,” and the reactions are all over the place.

The most common backlash is related to the trailer's psychedelic space-rock visuals, with many comparing the project to Marvel movies. Some teases from the official YouTube video and all over Reddit and X: "Narnia: Rangarok," "They Got Thor: The Love and Thunder of Narnia," "Guardians of the Galaxy Narnia," "Aslan the Lion Will Return in Avengers: Doomsday."

Many said they loved the trailer and it exceeded their expectations.

The trailer of The Magician's Nephew is the best trailer I have seen in recent years. They definitely lean towards the paganism of Narnia. Another: "People were preemptively hating on this one, but I know almost every scene and every line [from the book]. It seems like a very faithful adaptation with a kind of rock opera twist." And: "Greta Gerwig singing the entirety of The Dark Crystal/Jim Henson's Labyrinth + Harry Potter by Chris Columbus + Led Zeppelin + Blockbuster budget wasn't on my bingo card, but sounds fantastic."

Some agreed that they liked the trailer - not as a Narnia adaptation.

One wrote: “The visuals in the trailer are stunning, but I didn't really get anything to suggest this was a Narnia movie. And: "It might be the most conflicted thing I've ever felt about a trailer. It feels like a runner and it honestly has this wonderful ethereal quality to it. I just wish Narnia hadn't done that to her."

The rest are just mostly packed in the trailer.

Who would have ever guessed that bringing a legendary and beloved book series like The Chronicles of Narnia to modern Hollywood would result in a strange and cataclysmic fever dream interpretation with some of the worst CGI backgrounds ever? And: "This is a prime example of how something can lose its soul due to overuse of CGI... Netflix's butchery visuals of Narnia literally look like they were made using CGI. Artificial intelligence." And: "I'm not terribly impressed. This is not Narnia. This is Thor: Love and Thunder and Barbie had a baby. They make the boy timid, the girl adventurous, and Aslan is supposed to be the peak of masculinity."

The film stars David McKenna, Beatrice Campbell, Emma Mackey, Carey Mulligan, Ciaran Hinds, along with Daniel Craig and Meryl Streep, Kobena Holdbrook Smith, Denise Gough and Susan Vukuma. Netflix will release Narnia: The Magician's Nephew in theaters and Imax on February 12, 2027.