Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew Trailer Tops 481 Million Views in a Week

The first trailer for Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew drew more than 481.3 million views in its first seven days, according to WaveMetrix data first reported by Deadline on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026. That is roughly double the first-week totals for Gerwig’s own “Barbie” and well ahead of “Wonka” and “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” making the Netflix film one of the most-watched trailer launches on record.

Image: A lamppost glowing on a snowy wooded path, used for illustration. This is not a still from the film. Photo: spurekar, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

How the Narnia trailer views compare

Deadline listed the seven-day totals WaveMetrix recorded for recent big trailer launches:

• Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew: 481.3 million views
• The Super Mario Galaxy Movie: 281.6 million views
• Barbie: 240 million views
• Wonka: 237.2 million views

Fan site NarniaWeb added that “Project Hail Mary” reached 400 million views in its first week, so the Narnia figure also tops that recent benchmark. Deadline said the trailer trended at No. 1 on X, was still the No. 1 trending movie trailer on YouTube, and drove so much traffic to NarniaFilm.com that the site briefly crashed.

The numbers were not left to chance. Netflix ran paid media worldwide across social platforms, linear and connected TV and out-of-home advertising, with placements on TikTok, Reddit, Meta, X, Snap, Pinterest and YouTube. On TV, Deadline said, the spots ran in early-morning, late-night and Sunday NFL programming.

Led Zeppelin’s first-ever trailer sync

Part of the buzz comes from the music. The trailer marks the first time Led Zeppelin has granted a sync license for “Stairway to Heaven” to be used in a film or trailer, Deadline reported. Guitarist Jimmy Page called Gerwig “a powerhouse in the world of cinema” and said he was “thrilled that she chose ‘Stairway to Heaven’ in the trailer for her film.”

Gerwig debuted the trailer on Oct. 13 at an IMAX preview event in New York, in conversation with “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert. She said the band members are C.S. Lewis fans and “saw the heart of the story in the film.” Describing why the song fit, she said: “It is about a spiritual journey. It’s about the true path of enlightenment and spirituality, and then this sort of path of false idols and the wrong roads you can go down. And I was like, this is exactly the story of this movie.”

What we know about the film

“The Magician’s Nephew” is Lewis’s origin story for Narnia, following Digory and Polly as the world is created, rather than a return to “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” Gerwig wrote the adaptation, which Deadline said is the first screen version of the book. The cast includes Emma Mackey, Daniel Craig, Carey Mulligan, Meryl Streep, Denise Gough and Ciarán Hinds, and the producers are Amy Pascal, Mark Gordon, Vincent Sieber and Gerwig.

The release plan is unusual for Netflix. According to The Chairshot’s roundup, the film opens in IMAX previews on Feb. 10, 2027, before expanding to theaters on Feb. 12, and does not arrive on Netflix until April 2. Deadline described that as an exclusive 49-day theatrical window in the United States, with Sony handling the theatrical release overseas.

On Netflix’s earnings call, co-CEO Ted Sarandos said, “Our theatrical strategy has evolved,” adding that the company had one week of public box office reporting “under our belt” and was “real happy about it.”

Fans are watching, but not all are convinced

Big view counts do not mean universal approval. NarniaWeb polled its social media followers and drew more than 4,000 responses. Of those, 46% said the trailer made them more optimistic about the film and 35% said less optimistic. On Gerwig’s creative direction, 40% had mixed feelings, 32% disliked it and 28% liked it. Still, 70% said they would definitely or probably see the film in theaters in February.

The trailer has also lifted the books. NarniaWeb reported “The Magician’s Nephew” was ranked No. 3 in the Children’s Classics category of Amazon’s Kindle Store, with “The Horse and His Boy” at No. 10 and “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” at No. 17.

For comparison, Gerwig’s “Barbie” opened to $162 million in North America and became Warner Bros.’ highest-grossing film with $1.44 billion worldwide, Deadline noted. Whether Narnia’s trailer heat turns into ticket sales will be one of the big box office questions of early 2027. For more on this fall’s film business, see our coverage of “Street Fighter” winning the weekend box office and the “Glee” revival ordered at Disney+ and Hulu.

Sources

• Deadline: ‘Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew’ trailer clocks 481M+ first-week views
• NarniaWeb: Greta Gerwig’s ‘Narnia’ trailer surpasses Barbie, Mario and Wonka
• The Chairshot: Bandwagon Nerds News Report, Oct. 21, 2026
• The Hollywood Reporter: Daily Edition, Oct. 21, 2026 (Netflix earnings)
• Wikimedia Commons: The warmth of a lamp (CC BY 2.0)