Why doesn’t Netflix want people to see its films in theaters?

Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos often claims he loves movie theaters. He’d love films to have long healthy runs at the box office, but audiences don’t want that. They want to watch movies at home, and he’s going to listen to what the consumer wants. But is that actually what the consumer wants? The answer is, apparently, “not really.”

The latest example of this is “KPop Demon Hunters,” an animated movie musical quietly released on Netflix in June. Since then, it’s become a phenomenon, and just passed “Red Notice” to become Netflix’s most watched movie ever. A one-weekend sing-along special edition of the movie snagged the top spot at the box office. With the film readily available on Netflix at home, people still chose to go out and spend money for the collective experience of the movie theater.

Viewers also pushed Netflix to make “Happy Gilmore 2” available in theaters, but the firm only put it out at very few theaters and with zero publicity. Sold out theatrical showings of “KPop Demon Hunters” and people demanding “Happy Gilmore 2” are only the most recent examples of consumers clamoring for more streaming content on the big screen. They got a one-week theatrical run of “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” in 2022 which generated $15 million in box office.

Fellow streamer Disney granted its audience’s wishes by turning their “Moana” streaming series into a theatrically released film that ended up grossing over $1 billion worldwide. Will Netflix actually listen to its audience and give upcoming films theatrical releases? Despite all the extra millions of dollars it could bring in, all signs point to no because Sarandos says “driving folks to a theater is just not our business.”

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