With Guillermo Del Toro apparently the latest to eke a theatrical release from the streamer, is Netflix’s fear of the big screen coming back to haunt it?
Cinemataphobia, an unspecified search engine helpfully informs me, is a form of agoraphobia commonly associated with trips to the local picture palace. Non-local picture palaces too, I presume – unless your local’s “turn off your phone” announcement is particularly frightening.
It’s a term Netflix and its CEO, Ted Sarandos, must be particularly familiar with. For much of the last decade, the streaming juggernaut has bet the content-farm on keeping its original films as far from a projection booth as humanly possible, occasionally to its own detriment. Analysts suggested Rian Johnson’s follow-up to Benoit Blanc mystery Knives Out, Glass Onion, left as much as $37m on the table in its domestic opening weekend alone when it debuted in a week-long limited release back in 2022.
Ignoring the possibility that Mr Sarandos is genuinely, deathly afraid of the big screen, The Arrival of a Train-style, it’s a principle that’s seen Netflix completely dominate the home-streaming market. If nothing else, it’s been a sound business strategy. If they make the most money through driving subscribers to their service, why would they want to split the cash with those nasty cinema chains wanting to ‘pay their heating bills’ and ‘make sure their employees don’t starve’?
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But as the streamer has looked to scale back on its auteur-driven programming, Netflix’s political position has grown increasingly precarious. First came multiple reports that Greta Gerwig – who signed on to make at least two Narnia films before Barbie made her one of the most in-demand filmmakers on the planet – was angling for an IMAX release for her burgeoning fantasy epic. Then, executives were ‘shocked’ to find their $150m bid for Emerald Fennel’s Wuthering Heightswas turned down in favour of a pile of cash from Warner Bros less than half its size. The reason? Warner’s $70m came with the guarantee of a cinema run…
Now, it seems like Del Toro – who gave Netflix one of their highest-profile Oscar wins with his stop-motion Pinocchio project – is the latest director to break ranks with company policy. Taking to Bluesky, the horror maestro (or someone who looks a lot like him – the social media platform’s verification system doesn’t seem to be up and running yet) responded to Vanity Fair’s first look at his 2025 Frankenstein adaptation to say his Netflix flick will be getting a theatrical release after all.
Frankenstein will have a theatrical run…
— RealGDT (@realgdt.bsky.social) 21 November 2024 at 14:20
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Del Toro’s post, complete with ominous-looking ellipsis, doesn’t seem to have prompted a comment from Netflix yet (Film Stories has reached out for one). If true, though, it would certainly signal a break from its publicly stated policy.
First, the company gained a reputation as one of the few filmmaker-friendly outlets while traditional studios became increasingly fixated on IP and super-tights – attracting the likes of David Fincher, Guillermo Del Toro and Greta Gerwig into exclusive deals without definitively taking theatrical releases off the table. The aforementioned Johnson, apparently unhappy at the streamer’s inflexibility regarding his Benoit Blanc franchise, was among the first to draw a small cinema run out of the streaming stone after the likes of Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman and Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma only managed minimal, awards-qualifying runs. But Glass Onion’s deliberately stunted release only really proved how committed the titan was to the small screen – if it’s willing to sacrifice millions of dollars at the box office to keep its subscriber-exclusivity intact, what chance does any filmmaker with a less commercial vision have?
Indeed, despite reports, the idea that Gerwig, Del Toro or any of the other filmmakers Netflix currently has on its payroll could wrangle a wide cinema release from their bosses still seems somewhat too good to be true. Once Pandora’s Box is opened, after all, it might just prove impossible for the company to close…
Still, Del Toro’s post is just the latest crack to show in a streaming domination that up until the last year or so seemed total. Sarandos might just have to get over his cinemataphobia – or risk bleeding all the talent his company has worked so hard to get…
