With Warner Bros. Discovery no longer being acquired, Netflix seems to have cooled on plans for more theatrical release features.
Yes, Greta Gerwig’s upcoming “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” is still getting an exclusive 54-day theatrical window before hitting streaming, but Netflix’s Film Division chief Dan Lin says that is the exception, not the norm.
Speaking with The New York Times (via WOR) for a new piece headlined “Netflix Is Done Coddling Hollywood,” Lin says filmmakers who want to push Netflix to give their film a theatrical release like “Narnia” – well, there’s the door:
“There is a group of filmmakers who still want theatrical. Those are filmmakers that we’ve accepted we just won’t work with.”
Netflix has been relatively strict with its no-theatrical policy which is why films like Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” went to a studio, a film like “F1” ended up at Apple, and Zach Cregger’s “The Flood” stalled at the streamer.
Films will still continue getting the minimum two-week Oscar-qualifying runs in theaters, including the Denzel Washington and Robert Pattinson-led “Here Comes the Flood” and David Fincher’s “The Adventures of Cliff Booth”.
