Ted Sarandos “Thrilled With Every Aspect” Of ‘Glass Onion’ Release, Says Theatrical Window Drove Demand To Netflix
Ted Sarandos addressed Netflix’s limited theatrical release of Glass Onion: Mystery: Knives Out during the streamer’s Q4 earnings call on Thursday, echoing executive chairman Reed Hastings‘ previous remarks The film was released in theaters as a promotion tool for the streamer.
“I’m thrilled with every aspect of the release of Glass Onion,” Sarandos said when asked if he had any regrets about the rollout. “I think what you saw was a lot of excitement. That theatrical release created a lot of buzz and a lot of demand. We fulfilled that demand on our subscription service. Our core business is making movies for our members to watch on Netflix, and that’s what we’re really focused. Everything else is really a tactic to drive excitement around those films.”
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The Thanksgiving holiday is Netflix Published Glass Onion A sneak preview of the film is available in cinemas for a week. It did a phenomenal job, earning $15M. It was the most successful theatrical launch of a Netflix prestreaming movie. With a 3-day opening of $9.3M, it was the 10th best for a title opening at less than 900 theaters.
The film’s box office revenue prompted some speculation as to why Netflix wouldn’t give the film a longer theatrical run, but Hastings quickly shut that down in November when he explained that executives were aware there was money left on the table — and they didn’t see a problem with that.
“It’s a promotional tactic for the streaming service,” Hastings told the New York Times DealBook conference in NYC. “We are not trying to build a theatrical business.”
He said the streamer’s “two religions” are “customer satisfaction” and “operating income.” The Knives out sequel in theaters was a tool “so more people watch it on the service.”
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