IMAX C.E.O. Rich Gelfond has allegedly promised Netflix and Gerwig that the company has a “nuclear option” that will require exhibitors to show what IMAX wants on IMAX screens. However, angry theater owners (according, reportedly, at Regal and Cinemark) feel that a brief two-week run during one of the most profitable parts of the year—the premiere is slated for Thanksgiving weekend 2026—is “not anything that’s sustainable in any shape or form.” Especially when other blockbusters are scheduled for release at the same time. Disney is reportedly “furious” as it has an animated movie scheduled for the same weekend (and a Marvel film scheduled for a couple weeks before). Lionsgate also scheduled its next Hunger Games for around that time. Exhibitors could potentially try to circumvent IMAX and go for one of those movies instead. “I struggle to see who would program Narnia over Moana 3, if that were to come out,” a top theater exec told Puck. “These large formats still only account for less than 20 percent of box office. It’s not something that really works for our industry to support that—particularly with a studio that is not in our business.”
The thing is, pretty much everybody wants Netflix to get in the theatrical game. A rising tide lifts all ships, and if Netflix did more theatrical releases, it would be good for the whole ecosystem—an ecosystem that Netflix’s business model has threatened to eliminate. “This has been a perplexing misdirection from Netflix in exhibitors’ minds for years,” a “veteran theater executive” told Puck. “Exhibitors are kind of fed up with Netflix sticking their toe in the water and pulling back. Apple and Amazon have tried real theatrical runs, with mixed success. But they made a real attempt, and Netflix never has.”
There’s a lot of time between then and now, though, and Puck sources suggest IMAX has already cut a deal to show Narnia with AMC, which owns more IMAX theaters than any other chain in the country. The rest may fall in line to get a piece of the pie, especially if the Narnia pie is as lucrative as Gerwig’s Barbie was. Only time will tell.
