The Greta Gerwig trailer Narnia: the magician’s nephew is surprising for many reasons, not least its psychedelic visuals, but even among all the fanciful imagery, one thing seems particularly impossible: It’s set to Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.”
It’s no exaggeration to call “Stairway to Heaven” one of the most famous and beloved rock songs of all time, and Led Zeppelin has been extremely protective of it since its release in 1971. According to Consequence of Sound, this is the first time the band has licensed the song. So how did Gerwig do it?
During an early trailer, Gerwig told Stephen Colbert that she simply showed the film to singer Robert Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page and shared her vision with them. “It’s an epic song that’s about a spiritual journey,” Gerwig said, according to Gold Derby. “That’s also the story of this movie. I showed them (the movie) and talked to them about it, and they both love CS Lewis. It was all very serendipitous.” According to the Hollywood Reporter, Gerwig said that Plant and Page “…saw the heart of the film.”
We’ve known for a while now that Gerwig’s view Narnia is said to be inspired by British rock and roll of the ’60s and ’70s, but it’s intriguing how literal that inspiration is. “I wanted a rock opera,” Gerwig said in September, and that’s exactly what the trailer looks like.
The fact that Narnia: the magician’s nephew is special enough to convince Plant and Page to license “Stairway to Heaven” for the first time, which is a huge endorsement of the film’s quality. We’ll see if it can live up to these high expectations when it hits theaters on February 12, 2027 and on Netflix on April 2, 2027.
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