Untitled the Chronicles of Narnia Netflix Film

[DandyAndy]

По словам гендиректора Netflix Теда Сарандоса, выпуск Нарнии в Imax не изменит их стратегию в отношении прочих фильмов стримингового сервиса

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1 час назад, DandyAndy написал:

По словам гендиректора Netflix Теда Сарандоса, выпуск Нарнии в Imax не изменит их стратегию в отношении прочих фильмов стримингового сервиса

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[DandyAndy]

The Imax-Narnia Nuclear Option

After plenty of negotiation, Netflix recently announced that it will give Greta Gerwig a two-week, Imax-exclusive theatrical run for her upcoming film. Everyone else, from the studios to the exhibitors, isn’t so happy.

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Last week, when Imax C.E.O. Rich Gelfond presented the company’s latest quarterly earnings report—which fell short of Wall Street expectations and caused the stock to dip 5 percent in after-hours trading—he had some additional, exciting news to discuss: Netflix had committed to showing Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Narnia film on at least 1,000 Imax screens for an exclusive two-week run starting on Thanksgiving weekend 2026. Netflix would then wait two weeks before debuting the film on Christmas Day. The only problem? Theater owners and studio execs, who are kind of essential to Imax’s business, wanted to throttle him.

Netflix’s insistence on putting its movies directly on the streamer, with some exceptions that get brief theatrical releases to qualify for festivals and awards, is all too well known to both studios and exhibitors. But Gerwig, like many directors, wants audiences to have a chance to see her film on the big screen first. And because Greta gets what Greta wants, as she should, the Imax deal was born. In a February 19 call with analysts, Gelfond talked about the heavy lifting required to reach that agreement. “Obviously, there’s a lot of different constituencies with different agendas,” he said. “So we really had to construct something that would work for the exhibitors, that would work for Greta, that would work for Netflix, that would work for a lot of people. The right amount of windows. The right amount of playtime. … It’s a fairly complex deal to have met all the various constituencies.”

The Netflix-Imax deal, however, didn’t work for the legacy studios and theater chains that regard Netflix as their “common enemy,” as one studio veteran told me. According to sources, some of the studios had vehemently pressed Imax not to do this deal. Imax’s most important partner, Disney, is especially furious given the many millions of dollars its megahits have put into Imax’s coffers. “Rich did this on his own without consulting any of his [studio] partners,” an insider said. “They gave Netflix a two-week exclusive even though the other studios provide movies to them 52 weeks a year.”

Disney also has an opening-date marker on Thanksgiving 2026 for an unspecified animated film, which—if it turns out that the studio really has a movie ready for that slot—would be deprived of an extra-profitable Imax run during the holidays. (Last time Disney put a marker on that date, the movie turned out to be Moana 2, which grossed a modest $1 billion.) A couple weeks earlier, on November 6, 2026, Disney has an untitled Marvel movie slated. Lionsgate, meanwhile, has a Hunger Games prequel set to open on November 20, and undoubtedly would like more than a few days on Imax screens.

And despite Gelfond’s claim that he had won over the “various constituencies,” multiple sources told me that some of the largest theater chains in North America—including Regal and Cinemark—were caught off guard and are so angry that they are indicating, at least for now, that they won’t play Narnia on the Imax screens in their theaters. That may be a plausible threat. As one exhibition exec observed, after pandemic- and strike-related supply delays, there are now more movies in the pipeline that could bring profit and play on all of a chain’s screens, large and small. For theater owners, this two-week Netflix stunt, he said, “is not anything that’s sustainable in any shape or form.”

The Nuclear Option

So… can theaters refuse to play the Gerwig film on their Imax screens? The answer would appear to be yes. While Imax licenses its technology to theater chains, multiple exhibition and studio sources told me that the chains ultimately control what gets booked on those giant screens. Another source said that both Netflix and Gerwig’s reps were concerned about this very threat.

But Gelfond assured both that he had a “nuclear option” to ensure that theaters will cooperate and book the film. What specifically that might be was unclear to the many sources I asked. When I put the question to Imax, the company responded with a statement that doubled down on the premise: “Under our theater agreements, Imax requires exhibitors to play the films we format and program. Our ability to curate our programming is what makes us valuable to exhibitors, filmmakers, and studios, and delivers a return on investment with our theaters worldwide.”

While the issue might seem like a see-you-in-court situation, that outcome is probably unlikely. Sources believe that Imax has already cut a deal with AMC Theatres, which has 182 Imax screens in the U.S.—far more than any other company—and often doesn’t march in lockstep with other exhibitors. (Reached by phone, AMC C.E.O. Adam Aron said it was “inappropriate” for him to comment.) Also, what happens in 2026 is all hypothetical at this point, anyway. Even if the other top exhibitors—which together account for about 108 Imax screens out of roughly 400 in North America—are mad now, that doesn’t mean they won’t eventually crack to get a couple of weeks’ worth of revenue from what might be another Gerwig event movie, especially if it picks up good early buzz.

It’s not like the big theater chains haven’t played ball with Netflix before: AMC, Regal, and Cinemark all showed Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery during its very limited, weeklong run in about 600 theaters in November 2022, no doubt hoping that a taste of box office cash would whet Netflix’s appetite for more. Netflix didn’t disclose box office numbers from the run, but David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research told Variety that he believed the Knives Out sequel would have opened at around $30 million domestically and pulled in $300 million worldwide had it been given a full theatrical run.

Netflix’s appetite was not whetted, much to the frustration of the filmmakers and exhibitors. “By their own account, they thought they left money on the table,” said Cinemark C.E.O. Sean Gamble at an investor conference in March 2023. “We certainly were disappointed they didn’t take advantage of a more significant theatrical release, just based on the overwhelming consumer demand.” Still, he called the experiment “a positive step” and expressed hope that, in time, Netflix would see the value of larger theatrical releases.

“In Bed With the Devil”

Of course, when the Narnia deal was announced, most of the town immediately began to hope that it might represent a shift in Netflix’s longstanding policy against putting its movies in theaters. But co-C.E.O. Ted Sarandos shot that down immediately, saying the deal represented “no change at all” to the streamer’s strategy.

Many in Hollywood are baffled by Netflix’s steadfast commitment to this filmmaker-unfriendly position. Scott Stuber, when he was chairman of Netflix Films, was openly warring with Sarandos on the issue before he left the company last year. That’s because a hit movie that gets a high-profile marketing push and plays for weeks in theaters can bring in big box office dollars and lead to a waterfall of money as the film progresses through various release windows and platforms. These days, Netflix can be part of that waterfall as studios license movies to the service after they’ve played on other platforms. (“Sometimes you get in bed with the devil,” as one studio executive put it.) With luck, a hit movie can launch a franchise and, critically important to Disney and NBCUniversal, a hit movie can also become a cultural phenomenon that sells a lot of merchandise and inspires new theme park attractions. Movies that have gone straight to streaming have yet to generate anything near that kind of impact.

As one frustrated agent noted, the streamer that ate Hollywood has already broken its own policy vows: that there would never be ads, for example, or that the streamer would never go into sports. Why draw the line at giving at least some movies full theatrical runs? Theater owners are baffled. “This has been a perplexing misdirection from Netflix in exhibitors’ minds for years,” says a veteran theater executive. “Exhibitors are kind of fed up with Netflix sticking their toe in the water and pulling back. Apple and Amazon have tried real theatrical runs, with mixed success. But they made a real attempt, and Netflix never has.”

Meanwhile, a top executive at one chain predicts theater owners may well follow through on their threat and decline to play Narnia. With more movies in the marketplace now, it’s “a different ball game” than with Glass Onion in 2022, he said, adding, “I struggle to see who would program Narnia over Moana 3, if that were to come out. These large formats still only account for less than 20 percent of box office. It’s not something that really works for our industry to support that—particularly with a studio that is not in our business.”

So while it remains to be seen how Narnia will fare in Imax, let’s at least take a moment to celebrate the fact that a female director, of which there are but few, has the clout to command a wide theatrical release from Netflix. From Lady Bird to Little Women to Barbie, Gerwig’s movies have not only been critically acclaimed but have grossed a combined $1.9 billion, and not a dud in the lot. Whatever happens in this Imax skirmish, no one will blame her for the plan, though a knowledgeable source says Gerwig got interested in locking up some Imax screens because Warner Bros. couldn’t book any for Barbie thanks to Chris Nolan, who hoovered them up for Oppenheimer. That was a sore subject for Tom Cruise, too; he couldn’t find room on the giant screens for the seventh (and very expensive) Mission: Impossible film, which underperformed at the box office with a global take of $571 million. Come to think of it, while Barbie didn’t open on a single Imax screen, either, it still managed to do okay, raking in $1.5 billion on garden-variety movie screens.