“Glass Onion” Could Come Back To Cinemas

Filmmaker Rian Johnson is reportedly actively working to get his Netflix murder mystery feature “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” back into cinemas.

Netflix gave the film a highly successful one-week run in a limited number of cinemas over Thanksgiving – in the process bringing in around $15 million. In a Zoom chat with Insider on Friday, Johnson says:

“Any theaters we can get it into at any point I’m pushing for. I want more people to have the opportunity to be able to watch it.”

However he admits it’s likely a return to cinemas wouldn’t be until after the film hits Netflix on December 23rd.

“Once it’s on the service, it will be available to theaters and we’re exploring what form that can take. I’ll take as much as I can possibly get. But a lot of that has to do with what the theaters are willing to do, what makes sense.”

“Glass Onion” marks the widest release Netflix has ever done for one of its original movies to date with the film debuting on around 600 screens and playing at the three biggest movie chains in the country: AMC, Regal, and Cinemark. Johnson says everyone was watching the experiment closely:

“We were very interested in how it did. We wanted it to do incredibly well for a lot of reasons. I guess for me, because I really want to show that this can happen and this can be a huge success.

And that when it hits the service, people will still turn up, and it will be huge on the service. That those two things can complement each other. Because I want more next time. I want more theaters. I want it for longer.

The fact that Netflix did this is amazing. The fact that they did the effort, and the theater chains, to make this week happen the way it did, they were fantastic partners.”

Johnson is now getting to work writing a third “Knives Out” movie, which will also be released by Netflix.

Earlier this week Netflix CEO Reed Hastings admitted that “lots” of money was left on the table by not giving “Glass Onion” a wide release. However, he added: “It’s a promotional tactic like film festivals, and if it works well, we will do more of it. We are not trying to build a theatrical business; we are trying to break through the noise.”

Daniel Craig leads the cast, which includes Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Dave Bautista, and Kate Hudson.