Directors who insist on a theatrical release will have to give up on Netflix, even after the Narnia case, which nonetheless made waves.
Netflix and theatrical cinema is a tricky relationship. The platform’s big boss, Ted Sarandos, keeps stressing that his business model doesn’t rely on traditional exploitation. Yet the service sets limited windows for some of its major releases on the American cinema calendar. On one hand, this allows them to turn these titles into events, and massive promotional plays. On the other hand, it’s the entry key for many award ceremonies, notably the Oscars.
Moreover, Netflix took part in the bidding war to acquire Warner Bros and its enormous catalog, a competition it even won before Paramount-Skydance’s aggressiveness pushed it to bow out. At the time, to defend itself against industry backlash, Sarandos had promised to exploit those licenses in movie theaters. Clearly, this love for the big screen seems to have worn off again.
Netflix vs le cinéma
Dans un article sobrement intitulé « Netflix a fini de dorloter Hollywood », le New York Times interroge Dan Lin, président de la division des films de la plateforme. Décrit comme allant droit au but, l’exécutif arrivé en 2024 dans l’entreprise a effectivement évoqué la stratégie de son équipe sans grande subtilité :
« There is a group of filmmakers who always want theatrical releases. We have accepted that we will never work with these filmmakers.”
At least, that much is clear. He is actually responding to a question about Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew, one of the studio’s biggest blockbusters, expected to launch a new saga adapted from C.S. Lewis. The director Greta Gerwig (Barbie) had fought to bring the releases into cinemas, as well as the IMAX theaters, long before the streaming outing. In the end, after a hard-fought bout, she secured the first true long-running nationwide release in the studio’s history, i.e., 54 days of exclusivity. It will roll out in February 2027 in the United States, with France’s status still unknown.
Dan Lin makes it clear that this case is an exception and that it will not set a precedent. The examples of Netflix projects scuttled because of this policy are plentiful. In November 2025, The Wrap recounted how Zach Cregger (Barbarian, Évanouis and the upcoming Resident Evil) refused to direct The Flood, though it had already been announced, because he wanted to see it released in theaters.
