Sony Pictures will distribute Greta Gerwig’s “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” internationally when it hits theaters in February, Netflix announced on Tuesday. The Netflix original film will be released wide in domestic theaters, including AMC, Regal, Cinemark, Cineplex, Marcus and Harkins, when it opens next year.
Written and directed by Gerwig, the film will be released in Imax and in theaters worldwide on Feb. 12, 2027, and will debut on Netflix on April 2, 2027. Sneak previews, exclusively in Imax, will begin on Feb. 10, 2027.
Sony makes sense as an international distribution partner for Netflix, for what will be the streamer’s biggest theatrical release ever. The two studios have a Pay-1 licensing deal that sees Sony movies stream on Netflix after their theatrical release, which has proven fruitful for both parties for several years.
“Narnia” was originally slated for release over Thanksgiving, but when the film needed more time, Netflix pushed it to 2027 and expanded its theatrical release beyond just Imax distribution to a full wide release in all sorts of theaters across the world.
The cast for the film, which adapts C.S. Lewis’ “The Magician’s Nephew” for the first time for the big screen, includes newcomers David McKenna and Beatrice Campbell alongside Emma Mackey, Carey Mulligan, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith with Daniel Craig and Meryl Streep.
“Working with Netflix to bring this film to life has been extraordinary and IMAX continues to be an incredible partner. I cannot wait for people to see the film in theaters on February 12 and on Netflix on April 2,” said Gerwig.
“I was a child when I first read ‘The Magician’s Nephew,’ and I fell in love with the gorgeously improbable but completely brilliant concept of a cosmic lion singing the world of Narnia to life,” added Gerwig. “I didn’t know that I would grow up to make films, but a universe built out of music is an idea that always lived in my heart. It is the honor of a lifetime to be asked to imagine it into being. Because of C. S. Lewis’s ‘The Chronicles of Narnia,’ I believed in magic and hidden worlds and adventure. I believed that anywhere could be enchanted and that anyone could be swept up into an epic. That wonder and awe was available to everyone, even ordinary people like me… It transformed me.”
