The release date for the “sequel” to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood starring Brad Pitt has finally been revealed by Netflix. And yes, it will be a theatrical release… but not everywhere, of course.
It’s no secret that Quentin Tarantino (Kill Bill, Django Unchained) has long proclaimed he would only make ten films before walking away from filmmaking. So reaching his ninth, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, with a ready-to-go script for a follow-up creates a bit of a paradox. Fortunately for him, the director knows a few people in Hollywood, including some debuting filmmakers with relatively small portfolios like… the punchline: he simply entrusted the project to the legendary filmmaker David Fincher (Seven, Zodiac, The Social Network), who has already collaborated several times with Brad Pitt, the star who plays Cliff Booth.
Netflix released the first teaser for this highly anticipated sequel during the 2026 Super Bowl. While those initial shots of The Adventures of Cliff Booth let us marvel at Brad Pitt’s newly shaved mustache, they still did not provide a release date. The streaming giant, known for keeping things under wraps, even teased the possibility of a theatrical run after the success of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (box office of $393 million in 2019). But now, a release date has finally been revealed and it indeed involves a big-screen rollout.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (again)
Netflix has finally announced the (double) release date for the sequel to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Adventures of Cliff Booth: it will first hit theaters in the United States on November 25, 2026, exclusively in IMAX for two weeks; then arrive on Netflix on December 23. This underscores the platform’s serious push into major-screen distribution, even as it won’t be taking the helm of a Warner Bros studio project as had been speculated.
Initially, another Netflix production was slated for this window in November: Narnia, Greta Gerwig’s upcoming film (the Barbie director’s take on CS Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew). The blockbuster was ultimately pushed to early 2027, evidently to grant it a longer IMAX run, far from Dune: Part Three, which will monopolize screens starting December 18.
The postponement of Narnia takes on a different meaning now: wouldn’t this also open space for Cliff Booth’s adventures? The Fincher-directected continuation of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with Brad Pitt is sure to be a cinematic event. Netflix is betting big on it, with rumors pointing to a budget around $200 million—the same as Narnia. Yet the new CS Lewis adaptation is intended to relaunch a franchise and will obviously be marketed as a grand family spectacle, likely drawing a much broader audience than the Cliff Booth adventures, which will have only a two-week IMAX window. No direct clash with Dune: Part Three in that sense.
Despite the teaser released a few months back, the Cliff Booth adventures’ plot synopsis remains intentionally vague. While the film is expected to center on the character played by Brad Pitt, little is known about the story, which appears to unfold over several years based on a few scattered clues. It’s even likely that Cliff Booth’s world will blur the lines between what’s real and what isn’t within the narrative itself.
The Adventures of Cliff Booth, with also Elizabeth Debicki, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Carla Gugino, Scott Caan, Holt McCallany, and Timothy Olyphant (reprising his role from Once Upon a Time…), will thus be released in the United States on November 25, 2026 on IMAX screens, before its global Netflix drop on December 23.
Given France’s media chronology restrictions, there is obviously little chance the film will see a traditional theatrical release here, at least not in a standard fashion. It will therefore be a Christmas present, from your living room.
