Posted in: Movies, Netflix, Warner Bros | Tagged: netflix, Warner Bros

Netflix Considering 17-Day Theatrical Window For WB Releases

Netflix is reportedly considering a 17-day theatrical window for Warner Bros. releases.

The panic surrounding the Warner Bros. acquisition by Netflix is still just as present now as it was when it was first announced, and Netflix is not doing a very good job of proving to people that they're going to do this the right way. When this was first announced, we proposed following Amazon's upcoming model with MGM and building upon it. However, Netflix appears to be approaching this with their own model still in mind, and the Netflix theatrical model has not been successful many times.

Stranger Things is the exception, not the rule, for how Netflix properties typically perform at the box office. The show had a decade's worth of hype behind it, so of course people were turning up to watch the final episode on the big screen, but Netflix has done a poor job of marketing its theatrical releases to audiences before they are released on the streaming service. KPop Demon Hunters is one of Netflix's biggest movies ever, but its first limited theatrical run was barely a blip on the radar because the Netflix theatrical model does not work 9 out of 10 times. Now everyone is looking at the numbers for the Stranger Things, reports are coming down (via Deadline) "that Netflix have been proponents of a 17-day window."

Coming out of the pandemic, one of the things many people thought would change significantly was the theatrical window, and it did change substantially as movie theaters reopened. Before 2020, the idea of fighting tooth and nail for a 45-day window would have sounded like lunacy, but that's the world we live in right now. The problem is that Netflix is not listening to audiences when it makes decisions like this. Fall 2025 featured several big movies that people wanted to see in theaters, and social media was full of people saying they couldn't find screenings anywhere in the limited window Netflix was providing.

The fact is that Netflix is still approaching this like they can't have their cake and eat it too. There is the opportunity to have the theatrical arm of the business, via Warner Bros., and let it operate as you would expect, and the streaming model through Netflix itself. You need big theatrical-only films to keep the lights on just as much as you need streaming movies [ie, something that you would click on if you came across it on a Friday night but wouldn't seek out in a theater]. A good balance of both is the key, and the studios fighting for one or the other are the ones who will, at the end of the day, end up alienating audiences, studios, creatives, or theaters.

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