Daniel Craig's Narnia Just Rewrote the Netflix Rulebook

If you thought Netflix was content to just drop its biggest films straight onto streaming, think again. The streaming giant is shaking up its own playbook for its next major fantasy gamble: Narnia: The Magician's Nephew. Yes, that’s the C. S. Lewis one – and no, they’re not following Disney’s order from the mid-2000s. Instead, they're starting at the very beginning of the Narnian universe, and they're clearly banking on making a blockbuster out of it.

The Afterlife of Narnia on Screen

Just to wind the clock back a bit: the first time Hollywood took a run at The Chronicles of Narnia, we got Disney’s “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe” in 2005, which made a splash with younger audiences and their parents. But as the sequels came in—2008’s Prince Caspian and 2010’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader—the magic started to fizzle away. That franchise quietly stopped after three films, leaving diehard Narnia fans mildly disgruntled and everyone else mildly confused.

Now, Greta Gerwig is taking the reins for Netflix, and there's a fair bit of anticipation (albeit laced with anxious side-eye from Narnia purists). Instead of following the strict book order, Netflix is—somewhat logically—going chronological, opening with Digory Kirke’s childhood in The Magician’s Nephew. If you’re not steeped in the lore, this is effectively the origin story of the whole Narnian world—the one where you find out how the wardrobe came to be.

Stunt Casting, Theatrical Gamble, and Netflix’s New Playbook

Daniel Craig has signed on as Andrew Ketterley, Digory’s morally dubious uncle. That’s a decent bit of casting, and with that kind of name recognition, Netflix won’t struggle to pique the curiosity of even the most casual viewer. Throw in Meryl Streep and Carey Mulligan (yes, both are on the call sheet), and it’s clear Netflix aren’t being shy about stacking the deck.

But here’s where things get interesting: Netflix isn’t dumping The Magician’s Nephew on its app for a Friday night in. Instead, they’re giving it the kind of theatrical rollout that used to be reserved for major studio tentpoles. The film is landing in cinemas worldwide on 12 February 2027, with both IMAX and regular showings. If you’re keen (and presumably in a city with an IMAX screen), sneak previews start 10 February just for the big-format crowd.

Now for the true curveball: you won't be able to stream it at home until 2 April—a massive seven-week window in cinemas before it turns up on Netflix. To put that in perspective, the Knives Out sequel “Glass Onion” got exactly a week in cinemas before it was shunted onto streaming, and even Scorsese’s The Irishman only squeezed out a few weeks (despite running far longer than anyone’s patience). The Magician’s Nephew is, without question, Netflix’s longest-ever exclusive cinema run.

This is the second time a Netflix film with Daniel Craig has hit cinemas, so maybe there’s something very specific about his contract. Or perhaps Netflix are finally realising that people will actually pay for a ticket to see a film if you give them the chance. Either way, with a cast list like this, drawing cinema crowds shouldn’t be their biggest concern.

And, if you’ve been keeping up with all the backstage moves, you’d know Netflix’s recent buyout of Warner Bros. (yes, that old chestnut) has sparked all sorts of chatter about shifting to a proper theatrical-window model—45 days in cinemas before streaming, like a regular studio. Whether The Magician’s Nephew tips the scales is another matter entirely, but Netflix are clearly taking this one very seriously.

The Magician’s Nephew: Cast So Far

• Daniel Craig as Andrew Ketterley
• Meryl Streep (role yet to be specified)
• Carey Mulligan (role yet to be specified)

Netflix’s New Era of Movie Releases?

Netflix’s decision to give The Magician’s Nephew a full-on theatrical push—IMAX, standard, weeklong exclusivity—signals a very real shift in how the streamer might handle big-budget titles moving forward. If you want to see how Netflix adapts C. S. Lewis’s universe for a new generation, you’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way: find a seat in an actual cinema, at least for those first seven weeks.