Netflix will give Glass Onion a limited theatrical release at the end of November
In a surprise move for a streaming service that spent $450 million to get the rights to the movie (and at least one additional sequel), Netflix has decided to give Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery a small theatrical run. And by “small,” we mean “bigger than these things usually get, but still not very big.” This comes from Deadline, which says Netflix has worked out a deal with AMC, Regal, and Cinemark that will put the movie in 600 theaters from November 23-29—so one week, give or take—at which point it will be gone until it hits Netflix on December 23. That’s assuming that theaters don’t just decide to hold onto it because it’s doing well, which is apparently still a possibility.
Deadline says this is a “monumental peace treaty” between everyone involved, but this has been in the works for a long time. We heard at the beginning of the year that some kind of theatrical release was on the table for the Knives Out sequel, and over the summer we heard that it might even be as much as a 45-day window. It’s smaller than that, and it likely won’t be in most theaters for longer than that week (and it’s still only 600 theaters in the U.S. and Canada at that), but for people who want to see a big sequel to a phenomenal film on the big screen, it’s better than nothing.
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Netflix is billing this as a “sneak preview,” indicating that this is a special rollout and not the real release, and it also will not be reporting box office numbers for Glass Onion—which makes sense, since any numbers, good or bad, would reflect poorly on Netflix. That being said, Netflix is apparently footing the bill for some kind of promotional campaign tied to the theatrical release, so Netflix is hoping people will go see it and not just setting it up to fail (which would also reflect poorly on Netflix).
The best scenario here for Netflix is that the movie does well during its week in theaters but then doesn’t continue on for any longer than that to build up hype, then the people who saw it in theaters talk about how great it is, and then everybody watches it or rewatches it on Netflix. Then everyone forgets to cancel Netflix and lets it keep automatically charging them until they die. Everybody wins except the people who die!
