Greta Gerwig wins battle: Netflix bends to theatrical demand
Greta Gerwig, the director of "Barbie," a film that earned record-breaking sums in theaters, threatened Netflix that she would drop the next project she was supposed to do for the streaming giant if they did not show her film in theaters. And what happened? She succeeded.
4:14 PM EDT, October 30, 2024
This concerns the new adaptation of "The Chronicles of Narnia," based on C.S. Lewis's prose. The first film adaptation of this series began in 2005 with "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," intended exclusively for theatrical distribution.
Meanwhile, Netflix planned to release Gerwig's film solely on the platform. However, the director insisted that the movie be shown at least in a limited scope on the big screen. She even threatened to abandon the project if she didn’t get her way.
This conflict is quite telling for today’s cinematography. Since the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, theater owners have been counting losses. Audiences now "get" hot films right after the theatrical release or skip them altogether. The pattern of audience behaviour has changed; they now prefer watching movies at home from the comfort of their couch. However, there are still creators who want to reverse this trend.
Gerwig vs. Netflix 1:0
Apparently, Greta managed to achieve something that seemed impossible: she persuaded the VOD giant to bend its business rules for her film. She certainly had a good position for such negotiations. After all, we are talking about an artist nominated for an Oscar four times, the director of a box office hit in 2023.
The film's cast is being completed, and among the potential stars is Saoirse Ronan, a regular collaborator of Gerwig. However, Netflix or the director's team have not officially confirmed this information.
If Gerwig's "The Chronicles of Narnia" first hits theaters (it’s rumored to be on the IMAX network), it will fit into a new trend among streaming platforms. Films like Martin Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon" or Rian Johnson's "Glass Onion: A Knives Out" had limited theatrical releases before debuting on Apple TV+ and Netflix.
