Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos travelled to Las Vegas this week to hold a series of private meetings with the leaders of top exhibitors at this year’s CinemaCon conference. It was the first time Sarandos had attended the conference, signaling a change in Netflix’s posture towards cinemas. Sarandos met with the heads of AMC, Regal, Cinemark, and the industry’s trade association Cinema United.
While no formal deals were announced, the discussions were characterized as “hopeful” by reporting from The Wrap, the first news outlet to cover the story. One direct participant in the discussions indicates that Sarandos “wants to find a way to work together” with exhibitors.
After arriving in Las Vegas on Sunday, Sarandos met with two different groups on Monday. One meeting included international exhibitors, and the other looped in executives at Cinema United, the trade organization that runs CinemaCon. Sarandos acknowledged the strategic tension inside Netflix around theatrical releases, arguing that by giving new movies long, exclusive runs in theatres could negatively impact their performance on streaming. He cited mixed results on this topic from Netflix’s streaming competitors, Apple and Amazon. The exhibitors camp challenged that conclusion, citing the streaming performance of successful theatrical releases like Apple’s F1 and its distribution partner Warner Bros.
Even though Sarandos chose to restate his concerns about traditional theatrical releasing and walked away without any significant change to the status quo, his willingness to come to CinemaCon for the first time and meet with exhibitors suggests Netflix is reassessing the value of theatrical. Netflix has limited success in 2025 with several theatrical “experiments”, including a late-summer weekend availability for KPOP DEMON HUNTERS months after its streaming debut and using theatres to show the STRANGER THINGS series finale for one night only on New Year’s Eve.
Each of these events was covered extensively in the media and generated over $25 million at the box office despite being extremely limited in both the number of theatres participating and time-limited availability. Later this year, Greta Gerwig’s NARNIA: THE MAGICIAN’S NEPHEW will be introduced at over 1,000 IMAX screens for a two-week theatrical run over the Thanksgiving holiday, making it the widest Netflix release in history. These examples, along with Sarandos’ appearance at CinemaCon, are certainly an encouraging sign of Netflix’s long-term interest in working with movie theatres.
One can only wonder if the blowback that the company experienced from all corners of the movie industry during its aborted attempt to acquire Warner Bros. has influenced its strategy about collaborating with theatres.
