Barbie director Greta Gerwig is reissuing the Chronicles of Narnia series by CS Lewis and is set to direct two fantasy hits for Netflix. While the mammoth project is currently in the pre-production phase, rumors have become increasingly louder in recent months that Gerwig is also trying to get her films released in theaters before they end up on Netflix as a streaming subscription. After intensive negotiations, Gerwig apparently succeeded: Your first Narnia film is actually coming to theaters.
Netflix’s Narnia film hits cinemas before streaming starts
As well-informed scooper Matthew Belloni writes in his industry newsletter Puck, Netflix has officially committed to a theatrical release of Gerwig’s first Narnia film. Netflix boss Ted Sarandos has therefore agreed that the fantasy hit is for two weeks on 1000 IMAX screens in at least 90 countries is shown. If the film does well there, the run could be extended by another week or two. Additionally, there is a chance that the IMAX release will expand to regular movie screens.
After this release period had already been rumored, the theatrical release has now been set for Thanksgiving weekend in 2026 confirmed. More precisely, the film should on Thanksgiving, November 26, 2026 start in the USA. In Germany, a start on the same day would be possible. The film will be available for streaming subscription on Netflix around four weeks after its theatrical release, just in time for Christmas.
This has never happened before: Netflix’s Narnia film gets a unique campaign
Gerwig’s Narnia film is not only intended to convey the Netflix brand to the outside world, but also as the first Netflix film ever can also be advertised as an IMAX film and thus receive a similar marketing campaign as other cinema films. Netflix films usually have to do without any campaigns.
Netflix films such as The Irishman, Roma and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery have shown in the past that the streamer can definitely get involved in theatrical releases of its films. Here, however, so far a maximum run of one week agreed and largely for one specific reason: so that the films can be considered for the Academy Awards, whose rules stipulate a theatrical run of at least one week in six different US cities.
According to Belloni, after negotiations between Sarandos and numerous other filmmakers on the subject of cinema failed, the Netflix boss finally personally advocated for the IMAX release of the Narnia film. As Belloni writes in his newsletter, Sarandos now wants to push Gerwig as a celebrated filmmaker on the biggest possible stage, in order to position the Narnia brand well for further projects.
It has not yet been confirmed whether the other planned Narnia films will also receive a cinema release. That will likely depend on how the experiment fares for Netflix in late 2026. You can read here why the cinema release of Narnia is a good idea. You can read everything else you need to know about the new Narnia edition here.
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