IMAX isn't rushing to launch franchises, but may if Narnia "works"

Hey, Lucy Pevensie’s siblings were also hesitant to pass through the wardrobe before taking their rightful places as kings and queens of Narnia. Gelfond explained the “fairly complex” deal at length (there were a “lot of different constituencies with different agendas that go in there,” he said), but subsequently softened his statement: “I think, if [Narnia] works, it will be tempting for the talent, for IMAX and certainly for Netflix” to re-engage.

Don’t expect to start seeing one-off indie movies getting exclusive time on the biggest screens in the world, but franchises seem to be fair game. The Narnia series “was a really great movie [for us] because I think there are like eight movies planned… and what IMAX does best is launch franchises and launch events,” Gelfond explained. (Sidebar: There are seven Narnia books, which means, if he’s right, at least one of them is getting the ol’ two-part treatment. For anyone whose knowledge of Narnia begins and ends with the abandoned Disney series, there’s so much more where that came from.)

In the end, Gelfond essentially reversed his original statement. “There will be more projects like this,” he asserted. “I think it will be successful at the end of the day, and I think it’s a good template for not just Netflix but doing business with others.”