Rian Johnson reportedly begged Netflix co-C.E.O. Ted Sarandos for a traditional “real theatrical exclusive” release for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. he told, “As of now, however, it is not happening.” The film will be released in select cinemas in November 2022 before streaming on December 23, 2022.
Speaking to Puck, Rian Johnson said he begged Netflix co-C.E.O. Ted Sarandos for a real theatrical exclusive for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. As of now, it’s not happening, I’m told, outside of a few marketing stunts. (Maybe Ted would have reconsidered if Johnson had given back some of that $450 million Netflix paid for the sequels?) That’s probably a few hundred million dollars Netflix is leaving on the table to send the movie directly to the service, revenue that Wall Street probably would have loved to see on the bottom line. But it would be a major retrenchment for Hastings.
Expect this storyline to repeat over the fall movie season, even as Netflix plugs its longer “exclusive” theater runs for movies like Noah Baumbach’s White Noise and Alejandro G. Iñáritu’s Bardo, which is getting 400 theaters in his native Mexico. Great, but in the U.S., if you don’t have the AMC and Regal chains, you don’t really have theatrical. Yet Hastings seems unwilling to acknowledge that not every Netflix customer wants to watch its movies on a small screen first.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is a sequel to Knives Out (2019). Directed by Rian Johnson. The film stars Daniel Craig as Detective Benoit Blanc, Edward Norton as Miles Bron, Janelle Monáe as Cassandra, Kathryn Hahn as Claire Debella, Leslie Odom Jr. as Lionel Toussaint, Jessica Henwick as Peg, Madelyn Cline as Whiskey, Kate Hudson as Birdie Jay, Dave Bautista as Duke Cody, and Ethan Hawke.
