Greta Gerwig has leveraged her “Barbie” star power to convince Netflix to give her the big, broad theatrical release she wanted for “Narnia,” her adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ fantasy series.
After months of negotiations, Imax announced that “Narnia” will be released exclusively on its screens worldwide for two weeks in advance of the film’s debut on Netflix. “Narnia” is currently slated to open in Imax on Thanksgiving Day 2026. It will premiere on Netflix at Christmas of the same year.
The Imax launch is a rarity for the streamer, which does grant limited, Oscar-qualifying theatrical releases for its awards hopefuls like “Emilia Perez” and “Maria,” but mostly prefers to have its movies, particularly the more broadly commercial ones, debut on its platform. There have been exceptions. In 2022, for example, Netflix allowed: “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” to have an exclusive one-week run in more than 600 venues, its widest-ever theatrical release. Other streamers have taken a looser approach to theatrical distribution, with the likes of Amazon and Apple debuting movies in cinemas, and allowing them to run there for weeks, even months, before they appear on their streaming services. That’s left Netflix failing to land certain buzzy projects that want to screen in cinemas first.
In 2018, Netflix announced it would develop new series and film projects based on Lewis’ “The Chronicles of Narnia” series. In 2020,it enlisted Gerwig, who has been nominated for an Oscar for directing “Lady Bird” and also oversaw an acclaimed adaptation of “Little Women.” Her star only continued to climb in the ensuing years. In 2023, Gerwig directed “Barbie,” which was the year’s highest-grossing film, earning nearly $1.5 billion worldwide and becoming a bright pink phenomenon.
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In total, the seven Narnia books have sold over 115 million copies and been translated into 57 languages worldwide. Netflix hopes the films will become its next major franchise.
Puck first reported that a deal with Imax had been reached.