Netflix has succumbed to awards season pressure and is finally doing the right thing. Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” will be released in theaters before hitting the streaming service. This is a major change from the day and date model Netflix has used in the past for films such as “Mudbound” and “Private Life.” In a surprise, however, it’s not the only awards-worthy film getting a traditional theatrical release. The Coen Brothers’ “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” and Susanne Bier’s “Bird Box” will also receive in theater runs before hitting Netflix worldwide.
“Roma” will debut in New York, Los Angeles and Mexico on Nov. 21. Additional engagements in the U.S. and London will begin on Nov. 29. International rollout will continue on Dec. 7. It will then debut on Netflix on Dec. 14 as originally planned. It’s unclear if it will remain in theaters past the 14th or if Netflix will release box office grosses for each film (something I noted yesterday was necessary for awards campaigning).
“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” will have limited theatrical engagements starting next Friday, Nov. 8, at The Landmark in Los Angeles, The Landmark 57 West in New York, the Embarcadero Center Cinema in San Francisco and Curzon Theater in London. It will debut on Netflix on Nov 16 and will have an expanded theatrical release in additional U.S. cities, Toronto and theaters throughout Europe.
The surprise inclusion of “Bird Box” seems like a test case. The Sci-Fi thriller will have exclusive limited theatrical engagements starting Dec. 13 in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and London. It will be released on Netflix on Dec. 21 and expand in other markets throughout Europe and the U.S.
How Netflix expects to expand these films after its streaming release is unclear. Especially during the incredibly competitive holiday period, but they recently brought on distribution veteran Scott Stuber to steer that ship. The service also revealed to Deadline that a minimum of 14.5 million subscriber accounts had watched Paul Greengrass’ “22 July” in the first three weeks of release globally. The number of actual viewers should be higher assuming multiple viewers were watching through the same account at a time. Moreover, 92% of viewers continued to watch the film until the end. Those figures are quite impressive considering how little social media impact the picture has had so far (social media being the metric the industry has mostly used to determine Netflix popularity).
As noted yesterday, this is significant for “Roma” in particular. Waiting until December hasn’t been a good Best Picture-winning strategy in over a decade (“Shape of Water’s” Dec. 1 date notwithstanding) and the theatrical release is how many guild and AMPAS members will either see it or be reminded to see it. This may be the move that transforms “Roma” from simply a Best Picture nominee to legitimate frontrunner (although “A Star is Born” and “Green Book” will have something to say about that).