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Movies & TV

18th May 2022

Netflix may premiere their movies in cinemas 45 days before streaming

Rory Cashin

The streaming giant recently laid off 150 people after subscriber numbers falling.

In case you missed it, Netflix is having a difficult 2022 so far. It announced that its subscription numbers were down 200,000 during Q1 of the year, predicting that it would be down by approximately two million by Q2.

To counteract this, the subscription service announced a cheaper, ad-supported option, as well as the global rollout of a crackdown on password sharing.

In further cost cutting measures, Screen Daily report that Netflix has laid off 150 people this week, representing 2% of its total workforce.

And now it appears that the streaming giant are looking to cinemas for their next influx of profit.

In a report by Bloomberg, executives at Netflix have held meetings with the heads of the biggest cinema chains in the U.S., with a suggested option of a 45-day exclusive window in cinemas before the movies are made available on the streaming service.

Netflix has previously had a small amount of their movies screened in a small amount of cinemas – such as The Irishman, Roma and Marriage Story, all of which needed a cinematic release to qualify for the Academy Awards – but the large cinema chains in the U.S. had previously blocked showing any of their movies if they were simultaneously available on the streaming platform.

This new release strategy will also be very good news for cinemas, as they have seen a significant drop in attendance even as things begin to go back to normal post-Covid.

Depending on how quickly this deal could be passed through, cinema-goers might soon be seeing Netflix Originals such as murder-mystery sequel Knives Out 2, Ryan Gosling vs Chris Evans spy thriller in The Gray Man, Netflix’s first ever adults-only movie Blonde, Guillermo Del Toro’s adaptation of Pinocchio, Tom Hardy and the director of The Raid teaming up on Havoc, and loads more.