Netflix’s mandate has always been, we want you to watch movies on Netflix. It has reluctantly put some films into theaters to achieve awards-eligibility or to appease auteur filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro and Martin Scorsese, and it has also bought and restored some movie palaces to demonstrate its love of cinema.
But the idea was never to put films in theaters and boast about how much money they make. Even when it seems it has a hit on its hands with a longer version of “Kpop Demon Hunters,” Netflix has never wanted to take a victory lap, because doing so would end up with egg on its face when things aren’t going so well. Hits and flops come for every studio. Just ask Apple how it enjoyed the scrutiny it got while it was in the theater.
That’s finally changing with Netflix’s big awards show of 2026, Cannes and TIFF darling “La Bola Negra.” This is an ambitious and sweeping Spanish war and LGBTQ epic that deserves to be seen on the big screen as it has inspired record-breaking standing ovations and won audience awards from the festival crowds who have seen it. The film will be released on Friday in a limited release on only four screens in both Los Angeles and New York, including Netflix’s The Paris and two major AMCs in Los Angeles, a chain that has historically refused to play Netflix films.
co ceo Ted Sarandos in his Screentime conference interview That said, Netflix released 30 movies in theaters last year, each with its own specific, limited release strategy, and “La Bola Negra” is really no different.
What’s different is that it will offer the longest theatrical exclusivity window – 47 days – it has ever offered before a film hits streaming, and it will be the first time that it will actually report what the film earned in theaters. The hope is that a strong per-screen average will fuel a long-term word-of-mouth campaign for the film over those 47 days, and that the platform is designing the rollout in such a way that it won’t hurt the film if it’s streamed later.
“We’re looking at this model and saying how do we serve movie lovers who want to see this movie in the theater, and how do we not hurt the value of Netflix, and how do we make the movie the best in the world,” Sarandos said. He said this requires treating art house films like “La Bola Negra” and “Train Dreams” differently from four-quadrant films like Greta Gerwig’s “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” or its animated “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” film.
Whatever “La Bola Negra” makes, it will be a box office record for Netflix, but only because Netflix hasn’t publicly reported what any of its other dramatic, awards dramas have brought in over the years. not once. The streamer broke the tradition that every movie studio has always followed when discussing the performance of their films, and it created the impression that, fair or not, Netflix didn’t care about theaters and the theatrical experience the way others did.
Netflix’s messaging began to change when it was set to buy Warner Bros. Discovery’s film properties, before Paramount swooped in with a better deal for the entire unit. Suddenly CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters were talking about how much they loved movie theaters, and they were making promises about a 45-day window to convince skeptics how it would handle a legacy studio like Warner Bros.
So why is Netflix doing all this now, and why with a movie like “La Bola Negra,” which has no stars, is not in English, and is not based on an IP? Because Sarandos is a smart cookie. Perhaps contrary to some perceptions, Sarandos did not openly attack Warner Bros.’ books and realized for the first time that movies could actually make money in theaters.
Another potential awards drama is coming later this year with David Fincher’s “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth,” a sequel to the box office hit starring Brad Pitt in the lead role. It’s also released the first trailer for Gerwig’s own highly anticipated “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew,” coming early next year, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if people saw that trailer before screenings of “La Bola Negra.” Both of those films, as well as Danny Boyle’s “Ink” and Peter Berg’s “Mosquito Bowl,” will have traditional box office reporting, as does “La Bola Negra.”
Along with “Cliff Booth” and “Narnia,” those films are in IMAX, and Netflix is currently negotiating with exhibitors on “Cliff Booth” to lock down that film’s footprint, but AMC and its approximately 200-300 IMAX locations have already agreed to screen it on Thanksgiving. “Narnia” will open wide beyond just IMAX, and hopefully both of these major tentpoles can deliver strong results.
“La Bola Negra” is a kind of trial balloon, even if it is not a big hit. This will help Netflix understand how it will report data moving forward and how it can improve that process ahead of “Cliff Booth” and “Narnia.” This is important because what Netflix has not done as it ramps up its theatrical ambitions is aggressively hire many executives who are experienced in the dramatic field. Netflix’s head of distribution, Spencer Klein, has been with Netflix for a while and knows the ins and outs of box office reporting from his tenure at Fox and The Weinstein Company, and its existing team has years of experience with these platform releases. This is not a matter of concern. But it hasn’t sought out new talent to determine how to best market these films and release them in a theater-first setting. And it ultimately didn’t buy a movie studio with all those people and processes embedded in it. Netflix recently brought on Warner Bros. and Paramount veteran Katie Martin Kelly to join its communications team.
But to secure these relationships with exhibitors and get the screens needed to make theaters viable, IndieWire understands that Netflix had to agree to somewhat more favorable terms than those that theaters typically reserve for other major studios, which also means a 50-50 split of ticket sales. It may also be necessary as a means of getting the specific theatrical window that Netflix wants. Netflix had no comment to add.
There are a few things that probably changed that led Netflix to this point, and the streamer’s argument is likely to be a combination of all of them rather than just one. The first, most obvious, is the drama the filmmaker brings to the table that Netflix has previously had trouble achieving, with Gerwig at the top of that list. Star talent also needs box office, not just streaming figures, to secure big paydays in the future. The second thing Netflix has likely seen is how its licensing deal with Sony has worked out for those movies: Generally, the Sony movies that perform best in theaters are the ones that also perform best on Netflix (with a few exceptions for something like “Madame Web”), though Sarandos argued in his Screentime interview that theatrical movies don’t necessarily perform better than all of Netflix’s other originals. Third, if Netflix wants to be able to release movies in theaters and then move them directly to Netflix, the window to do so may close as other studios begin to agree on other windowing standards for when a movie can go from theater to PVOD and then SVOD.
But the real challenge that could tip the scale is that any streamer, not just Netflix, is starting to reach the plateau of finding new subscribers in the US market (Netflix no longer regularly reports its total subscribers, saying that revenue is its main metric of success). Netflix has introduced an ad-supported pricing tier, it’s leaned heavily on live events and sports, it’s beefed up gaming and podcasts. It will have to find something different to help grow the streaming service. Putting movies in theaters and reaching a crowd that might not normally subscribe to streaming, but can be confident if they know this big movie they’ve made will eventually get there, might be a smart approach towards development. Netflix only on Wednesdays Nearly 1,000 employees were laid offDue to slow growth, this is one of the largest staff cuts in its history.
Another thing Netflix has to contend with is marketing expenses. Theatrical films require millions of dollars to be spent on trailers and promotional materials to build awareness and drive people to the theater, which is an even bigger task than clicking a button to start streaming a movie they may not have heard of. Many studios have a habit of throwing good money after bad into selling a movie, even when a movie is performing poorly (here you see “Digger”), so finding the right balance is something Netflix will have to figure out.
But the secret that streamers like Amazon and Apple (when it was tinkering with theatrical) discovered is that, even though they want all these movies to be hits theatrically, if the box office can cover the marketing costs, they’ve done their part and essentially provided a big free marketing campaign when the movie is ready for streaming. It’s been proven that movies that have more dramatic pressure tend to perform better later on, and Netflix finally wants to take advantage of that. Sarandos said that if a film is going to be somewhat of a hit on Netflix after playing theatrically, it should be because it will have a big box office haul. Plus, how many Netflix original films have entered the cultural conversation like theatrical films have? “Kpop Demon Hunters,” “The Kissing Booth,” maybe “Bird Box” and a few others, and after that it gets challenging unless you’re a “Bright” stan.
Netflix will likely say that despite these big movies hitting theaters soon, reporting box office numbers doesn’t represent a complete change in strategy. It still makes dozens of movies that are streaming-only plays and will do well with or without theaters. But it represents a change for the industry overall. And if some of Netflix’s successes can create a more robust theatrical market, that benefits everyone.