Islamabad (GNP): Netflix has released the first trailer for Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew, giving audiences their first look at Emma Mackey as Jadis, the White Witch. The trailer came out on Tuesday.
It opens with the line, “Sometimes, one story is the beginning of all the others.” The voice belongs to Daniel Craig, who plays the magician of the title.
The story follows Digory and Polly, two children played by newcomers David McKenna and Beatrice Campbell. They discover what appears to be an attic door to what Polly calls “other worlds”.
Craig’s character then gives Digory a ring that carries the children to a magical realm. A montage of their adventures follows, bringing in familiar figures such as the White Witch and Aslan, the talking lion, who will be voiced by Meryl Streep.
A wardrobe also appears in the trailer, recalling the 2005 film The Chronicles of Narnia. The trailer does not say whether it is the same wardrobe, and it otherwise points to a different experience from that earlier film.
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That fresh approach fits the film’s place in the franchise. It arrives almost 16 years after The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the last instalment of the original film series, so it is aimed at a new generation of C.S. Lewis readers.
Greta Gerwig is directing, and her earlier films Little Women and Barbie were both commercial and critical successes. Expectations have stayed high since 2023, when Netflix announced it had chosen Gerwig for its Narnia reboot.
Audiences will not have long to wait for the finished film. The Magician’s Nephew will be released in theatres on February 12 and will stream on Netflix on April 2 next year.
