The Narnia trailer for Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew has amassed more than 481.3 million views in its first seven days, according to WaveMetrix data revealed after Netflix’s earnings call. The total more than doubles the 240 million views Gerwig’s Barbie trailer drew in the same window, Deadline reported exclusively.
The scale of the number is hard to overstate. Trailer view counts have become Hollywood’s most-watched early indicator of audience interest, and clearing nearly half a billion views in a week puts the Narnia preview in rarefied company. It also marks a personal best for Gerwig, whose Barbie trailer was itself a record-setter when it arrived ahead of the 2023 phenomenon.
Beating the biggest trailer benchmarks
The trailer also topped The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (281.6 million) and Wonka (237.2 million) in first-week views. It trended at No. 1 on X, remains the top trending movie trailer on YouTube, and the flood of traffic briefly crashed NarniaFilm.com. The renewed attention has even lifted the books — The Magician’s Nephew climbed to No. 3 in the Children’s Classics category of Amazon’s Kindle Store, according to NarniaWeb.
The cross-platform surge reflects Netflix’s all-in marketing posture for the film. The streamer backed the launch with a global paid media push across TikTok, Reddit, Meta, X, Snap, Pinterest and YouTube, plus spots during Sunday NFL programming — a buy typically reserved for the biggest theatrical campaigns. The crashed fan site and the Kindle chart movement suggest the trailer reached well beyond the usual franchise faithful.
A music licensing milestone
The preview made music history as the first time Led Zeppelin ever licensed “Stairway to Heaven” for a film trailer. Jimmy Page publicly praised Gerwig, calling her “a powerhouse in the world of cinema,” per ComicBook resources. Netflix backed the launch with a global paid media push across TikTok, Reddit, Meta, X, Snap, Pinterest and YouTube, plus spots during Sunday NFL programming.
Securing the track is a coup that speaks to Gerwig’s cultural standing: Led Zeppelin has famously guarded its catalog against commercial and trailer use for decades. That the band said yes here — and that Page attached his name to the endorsement — signals the project’s prestige ambitions as much as its commercial ones.
Netflix’s theatrical bet
Netflix is giving the film a mega-wide theatrical release on February 12, with IMAX sneak previews two days earlier, under an exclusive 49-day window before it reaches the service; Sony handles overseas distribution. With a reported $280 million budget, the trailer’s record run is, as one outlet noted, the best news Netflix’s film division has had all month.
The theatrical commitment represents a notable evolution for the streamer, which has historically kept windows short. A 49-day exclusive run — longer than Netflix typically grants its films — suggests the company believes Narnia can play like a genuine four-quadrant blockbuster. If the trailer’s half-billion views convert into ticket sales, the gamble could reset expectations for how streaming-first studios handle their biggest swings.
