In the wake of a reported deal to bring Greta Gerwigās Narnia films to cinemas and IMAX, other Netflix films could be set to follow.
A rather interesting story popped up over the weekend which suggests that Netflix may have finally embraced the kind of strategic U-turn that a section of its audience has been waiting to see for a long, long time.
It was reported months ago that director Greta Gerwig was lobbying the company to give her planned Narnia adaptations some kind of cinema release. And where other filmmakers have tried and failed (or occasionally succeeded in fairly limited ways), the Barbie filmmaker may well have succeeded.
Netflix has always been reluctant to bring its titles to cinemas, repeatedly claiming that the only place to see these films is on its platform. However, in more recent times, that approach has seen the studio publicly (and quite embarrassingly) snubbed as with Emerald Fennellās Wuthering Heights. Thatās the example where the team behind the project accepted a much more modest deal from Warner Bros, because Netflix reportedly refused to countenance a theatrical run for the film.
According to IndieWire, a deal for Gerwigās Narnia films has now been done, something that looked in doubt just last month. That was when it was reported that other studios were unhappy with Netflix looking to bag valuable IMAX screens without making a wider commitment to the theatrical experience.
According to the report, the passage of any potential agreement seems to have been smoothed by a key factor: Gerwigās Narnia films will play on 1,000 IMAX screens globally, excluding China (which is a huge portion) but it seems like Netflix is undertaking a wider theatrical commitment, with the outlet stating that it has “already called IMAX about similar talks with other films.”
Does that mean some of Netflixās 2025 titles could make the jump to IMAX? We dearly hope so, not least Guillermo del Toroās Frankenstein, a project which hasnāt stirred up the excitment in this writerās soul that it ordinarily would, simply because itās clearly a film that deserves to be seen on a cinema screen (although del Toro, on social media, was insistent it would make it to cinemas).
Along with Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, Frankenstein is one of the projects being speculated as a potential IMAX title, but given that the IMAX slate for 2025 already has 19 confirmed films, we wonder how thereād be space at this point. And you canāt imagine a traditional studio will be too pleased if one of their films gets squeezed out.
More as we hear itā¦