Rian Johnson Says ‘I Don’t’ Agree With Netflix CEO Over Movie Theater Model Being ‘Outdated’: I Want ‘Knives Out 3’ in ‘Many Theaters For as Long as Possible’

11 comments

1. > “I want this in as many theaters for as long as possible,” Johnson said about the third “Knives Out” movie. “We’re going to push for everything we can get in terms of theatrical, because I want as many people as possible to see it in that form.”

2. Then maybe when you made that $400m+ deal for 2&3, you should’ve stipulated you wanted a theatrical release. You may have lost some millions, but then you wouldn’t have been such a hypocrite.

3. I appreciate what he’s saying, but if he wanted it to play wide, he shouldn’t have made that deal with Netflix. They put their films in like, a handful of theaters they own to qualify for Oscar nominations, and that’s the only reason. They want subscribers, not theater goers.

4. Glass onion was garbage. Still don’t understand why people like that movie. 

5. The directors and actors will obviously want that. That’s a war between them and the producers. Consumers will, at the end, decide and it makes me a bit upset that these star wannabes are pushing something unaware of our realities. I do think theatres are going to dwindle. Not die, but dude you need to accept it already.

6. You’d think someone with so many connections towards China and Israel would keep quiet (especially when he conned Netflix out of $400 million), but apparently this prick is that greedy and lacking in self-awareness.

7. I agree with him, but… did he not think about this when signing a deal with Netflix, a streaming company who would clearly prioritise their own service over theatres?

8. I might go to see it in the theater if tickets for my family came with the Netflix subscription. Otherwise I’m going to have to pass.

9. If seeing a movie in theaters wasn’t wildly overpriced and filled with people who have zero manners I might go, but not an experience that is worth it anymore.

10. Haven’t been to a theatre in 6 years now. I don’t miss it at all.

11. A few years ago in the height of the pandemic I thought an interesting play Netflix could make would be to buy a national theater chain. For their “prestige” movies, they could screen them in their theaters and let subscribers attend for free with paid tickets for non members. Strategically, it also would let them get into the negotiating table with other distributors and studios (‘cause obviously they’d still be screening films that were not just Netflix films). That might become an anticompetitive problem in the long run, but creates interesting opportunities for them if they could figure that out. 

    And even if the theaters themselves are dying as an overall experience, I’d argue they could take advantage of the HVAC infrastructure of theaters and convert some of their auditoriums to data centers.

    Anyway, just one of my crazy Netflix ideas that would never actually fly. But if they did go with it, they’d be able to easily appease the big screen focused directors by guaranteeing their films will play in a theater. 

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