It’s official: Meryl Streep is the voice of Aslan.
Empire has revealed the first look at Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew with a first look image and a pair of covers fronted by the great lion himself, confirming Streep is voicing the character.
The casting was first reported back in April of 2025, when Deadline said Streep was in talks for the role.
The reports set off plenty of debate among fans, as Aslan is male in C.S. Lewis’ books and was voiced by Liam Neeson in the 2005-2010 movie trilogy.
Now it’s no longer a rumor. Streep reunites with Gerwig, who directed her in 2019’s Little Women.
Aslan’s New Look Is A Nod To David Bowie
Empire‘s newsstand cover puts Aslan front and center, and this is not the Aslan fans remember.
The lion has two different-colored eyes and bold red stripes across his face, which the magazine says is a nod to one of Gerwig’s key inspirations on the movie: David Bowie. The red stripes recall the lightning bolt from Bowie’s Aladdin Sane album cover.
Gerwig also explained why Streep was the pick.
“I wanted someone who was profound but not pretentious, who had gravitas but not morose self-seriousness. Someone who could communicate depth and pathos as well as joy and delight,” the director told Empire.
“I wanted someone who was older than 70, so there was a wisdom of experience, but who also had the capacity of fresh wonder, like a child,” Gerwig continued. “And also to be one of the greatest actors to ever do it. That list is not a long one.”
A second subscriber-only cover features concept art from Jaime Jones, who worked on the film, showing Aslan creating Narnia itself. That’s straight out of The Magician’s Nephew, where Aslan sings the world into existence.
‘A World Made Out Of Music’
The Bowie touch isn’t just a design choice. Gerwig says the whole movie started with music.
“I had the same idea with Narnia,” she said, comparing it to how Barbie began. “I wanted a rock opera. I wanted it to be big and transporting.”
To be clear, the movie is not a musical. Gerwig means the British rock of the ’60s and ’70s — glam, prog — shaped how the movie looks and feels.
“David Bowie saved my life. Paul McCartney saved my life. David Gilmour saved my life. Pete Townshend saved my life. Jimmy Page, Robert Plant…” Gerwig said of the artists behind her vision.
“When I heard their music, I had this deep sense of [thinking], ‘You’re gonna be okay,'” she continued.
It connects directly to the book, where Aslan literally sings Narnia into existence.
“Narnia is literally a world made out of music,” Gerwig said. “It is a world sung to life by Aslan, and rock ‘n’ roll to me felt like a world made out of music.”
Why Gerwig Changed The Setting
Gerwig has also moved the story. The book takes place around 1900; the movie is set in post-war 1950s Britain.
Her reason is that the kids of gray, bombed-out Britain grew up to become those very rock stars.
“They had this relationship to pain and loss and something as unpromising as a bomb site, and they made a castle,” she said of that generation. “They made a universe. They made something you could live inside of.”
That’s the world her young leads Digory (David McKenna) and Polly (Beatrice Campbell) come from.
Gerwig even ties Bowie himself back to Narnia. Bowie was born David Jones before taking the stage name.
“I don’t know how you went from David Jones to David Bowie unless you went to Narnia and you saw something,” she said.
When Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew Comes Out
Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew opens in IMAX and theaters worldwide on February 12, 2027, with IMAX sneak previews starting February 10, before it streams on Netflix on April 2, 2027.
The movie was originally set for Thanksgiving 2026, but an on-set injury paused production for six weeks and pushed the release.
The cast pairs newcomers McKenna and Campbell with Emma Mackey, Carey Mulligan, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Daniel Craig, and Streep. Mackey plays Jadis, the White Witch, the role Tilda Swinton had in the earlier movies, while Craig is reported to be playing Digory’s Uncle Andrew.
