There have been rumblings lately that Greta Gerwig is upset that her “Chronicles of Narnia” film that she is about to begin work on won’t be appearing in any theaters because it’s made by Netflix. Of course, that’s to be expected considering Netflix doesn’t release any film in a wide release. Hell, it only releases some films in limited release to earn Oscars contention. But according to a new report, it appears Gerwig could potentially get her way.
In a recent social media post, respected entertainment journalist Matt Beloni (who writes for Puck) posted that Greta Gerwig and Netflix might be coming to an agreement to put “Chronicles of Narnia” on a 2000 screen IMAX run. This would be a compromise between the two. Gerwig gets her theatrical release and Netflix retains that the film is only playing premium theaters and not going full wide release.
Belloni goes a bit deeper about this in his newsletter. There, he talks about how Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos would prefer if no Netflix films got a theatrical release. But there are some people high up in Netflix that are willing to break the rules for special films, such as ‘Narnia.’ The report also claimed that this is still in the very early stages of discussions, and there are a lot of things that have to get figured out before this is actually a thing. Will Gerwig get box office bonuses? How long will it play in theaters? Will AMC allow it to happen (considering the chain owns a lot of IMAX screens)? Questions like that.
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Even if Gerwig gets her way, it appears the release would only be for a limited run of about a month before it then makes its way on Netflix. The example given was if ‘Narnia’ is released by Thanksgiving in theaters, it’ll be on Netflix by Christmas.
What isn’t really discussed in the report is the ripple effect this might have on people who make deals with Netflix. Will the streamer continue to budge on theatrical if it meant making a prominent filmmaker happy? We’ll have to see what happens.
As of now, “Chronicles of Narnia” has yet to get a release date.
