Netflix has increasingly softened its historic aversion to movie theaters, releasing dozens of titles on the big screen last year. The streamer is doubling down on this theatrical approach with a strong slate of upcoming cinema-first releases, including Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew, David Fincher’s The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, Danny Boyle’s Ink, and the highly anticipated sequel to the platform’s biggest hit.
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos spoke at length about the company embracing theatrical strategies this week, confirming their tentpole features, Gerwig’s Narnia and the animated feature Charlie vs. the Chocolate Factory, are getting 50-day and 47-day theatrical windows, per Deadline. He also teased that KPop Demon Hunters 2 will outpace that run in 2029 when it hits theaters.
“We’re going to do a big wide release for Narnia next year, and then we’ll do a big wide release for Charlie vs. the Chocolate Factory at the end of the year. We think they’ll do great, and when the KPop Demon Hunters sequel comes, you can expect a very broad theatrical release.”
The announcement isn’t surprising, considering how KPop Demon Hunters performed on the platform — it ranked in the global top ten for 63 consecutive weeks and amassed over 325 million views to date. It officially became Netflix’s most-watched film of all time with 236 million views in August 2025, roughly two months after its premiere.
Driven by word of mouth and social media buzz, the film became a viral sensation, spurring clamor for a theatrical release. Netflix capitalized on that momentum with a two-day limited run, a weekend sing-along event screened in 1,700 theaters — KPop Demon Hunters topped the box office at launch and pulled in $18 million in the US. The 2025 Halloween weekend re-release also raked in an additional $6.3 million, bringing the film’s lifetime domestic haul to $24.3 million.
Netflix is warming up to theaters with its evolving release strategy, but its streaming-first model is still priority. “What we’re doing is looking at this model and saying, ‘Okay, how do we serve movie lovers who may want to see this movie in a theater,’ and ‘How do we not harm value to Netflix?'” Sarandos said. “How do we position the film best in the world?”
KPop Demon Hunters 2 is Netflix’s response to the “passionate audience” that wants to see the film in theaters, though Sarandos argued there’s a disconnect between box office and streaming success.
“No disparaging movies in the box office, but movies that come out in the theater do pretty well, what happens is the most passionate audience went to see it in the theater, so by the time it comes to Netflix, you’ve lost that passionate audience, and you got the people that go, ‘Oh, I meant to see that,’ or ‘I’ll get around to that.'”
Sarandos captured the Netflix dilemma with that statement, which explains its streaming-first model in the first place. It’s also unclear whether KPop Demon Hunters would have performed as well in theaters without the momentum it gained on the platform. It all worked out for the “passionate audience” in any case, because Netflix has agreed to theatrical-first releases for some sequels and tentpoles, responding to audience demand in certain cases.
- Release Date
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June 20, 2025
- Runtime
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96 minutes
- Director
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Chris Appelhans, Maggie Kang
