Narnia gets 49 days in cinemas, 3.5 times what Netflix first offered

When Netflix first told the world how Greta Gerwig's Narnia: The Magician's Nephew would reach cinemas, the answer was 14 days. Now it is 49. Count the dates Netflix has published since, and the film's exclusive run in cinemas has grown three and a half times over in 21 months, from a fortnight on IMAX screens to seven weeks in every multiplex that wants it.

The first trailer arrived on Tuesday 13 October, unveiled at an IMAX event in New York, and the reaction has split roughly where you would expect. MovieWeb collected posts calling it "the best trailer I've seen in years" alongside others dismissing it as "Disney marvel slop". The music is the talking point: the trailer is cut to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven", a song the band had never licensed before, according to both What's on Netflix and TV Insider, which say Gerwig won them over by showing them the film.

The trailer is the news. The release plan around it is the story, because it is the clearest record anyone has of how far Netflix has moved on cinemas, and it has moved further on this one film than on anything else it owns.

What Netflix promised in January 2025

The original deal, announced by IMAX and Netflix in January 2025 and reported by Screen and Deadline, was narrow by design. Narnia would open on IMAX screens only, on Thanksgiving Day, 26 November 2026, for two weeks. It would then stream on Netflix on Christmas Day. Reports put the footprint at around 1,000 IMAX screens in 90 countries, with talk of a third week if demand justified it. Even then the reports did not agree: Puck's Matthew Belloni put the run at four weeks.

Do the sums on that plan and the shape is plain. Cinemas would have had the film exclusively for 14 days, then nobody would have had it at all for another 15, and on day 29 it would have been on every television with a Netflix account. That was a premiere with tickets, not a release.

Three months later, at the TIME100 Summit in April 2025, co-chief executive Ted Sarandos described communal cinema-going as "an outmoded idea, for most people", a line The Playlist and No Film School both carried. He has since said he meant "outmoded for some".

What changed on 1 May 2026

On 1 May this year Netflix moved the film 78 days, from 26 November 2026 to 12 February 2027, and changed the kind of release it was getting. IMAX keeps two days of sneak previews from 10 February. Then the film goes wide, in every format, and it does not reach Netflix until 2 April 2027.

Deadline's explanation for the delay, as NarniaWeb reported, was an injury to a member of the cast that stopped production for six weeks. The same report said a wide release "was always Plan B".

AMC chief executive Adam Aron, whose chain had long balked at booking Netflix films on short runs, posted that "it should not be lost on anyone the significance of Netflix trying a real global release of a major film title", and told TheWrap that AMC's roughly 225 IMAX auditoriums would carry the previews. In June, Netflix went further and handed international cinema distribution to Sony Pictures, TheWrap reported, while it books AMC, Regal, Cinemark, Marcus and Harkins at home itself.

So the record runs like this. In January 2025: 14 days, IMAX only, streaming on day 29. In May 2026: 49 days, every screen, streaming on day 49. The time cinemas get the film to themselves has gone from 14 days to 49, a multiple of 3.5. The gap to streaming has grown by 20 days, or 69%.

Two outlets have the wrong number

It is 49 days. Count from Friday 12 February to Friday 2 April 2027: 16 days left in February, 31 in March, two in April. TheWrap's report of AMC's statement uses 49, and so does What's on Netflix.

NarniaWeb's trailer post on Tuesday describes "a full 45-day theatrical run", and the French site 3DVF headlined the release as 45 days. Neither cites a source for it. A four-day error sounds small. On a film this size it is a long weekend of tickets.

Narnia against the rest of Netflix's winter

The 49 days look larger next to what Netflix is giving its other big films in the same season. David Fincher's The Adventures of Cliff Booth took Narnia's old Thanksgiving slot: two weeks on IMAX screens from 25 November, then Netflix on 23 December, a gap of 28 days, The Playlist reported. Brad Bird's Ray Gunn gets 14 days in a scattering of cinemas from 4 December, as we reported last week.

That makes Narnia's window 1.75 times Fincher's and 3.5 times Bird's. One film is a children's fantasy from the director of Barbie, which took close to $1.5bn worldwide. The others are not.

This is the position worth stating plainly. Netflix has not changed its mind about cinemas. It has changed its mind about one film, because that film is the opening chapter of a franchise it paid for and a family audience is the one most likely to buy tickets and then subscribe. Sources around the Cliff Booth deal told The Playlist the IMAX fortnight "doesn't represent a permanent shift" in strategy, and What's on Netflix reports the streamer's cinema push for the next year will centre on awards films and family titles. Narnia is the test case, not the new policy. The exhibitors spending $1.2bn on upgraded screens should read it that way.

The trailer's job was to make February feel like an event. It managed half.

IMAX sneak previews begin on 10 February 2027, the film opens worldwide outside France on 12 February, and it streams on Netflix from 2 April.