In what has been the worst kept secret since Woody Allen played Michael’s Pub in NYC, Greta Gerwig’s streaming adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia is getting an exclusive two-week Imax global run in 90 countries across 1,000 auditoriums in advance of the pic’s drop on Netflix.
Narnia will release in Imax on Thanksgiving Day 2026 (Nov. 26) and debut on Netflix on Christmas Day 2026. Currently, the other movies booked around Thanksgiving 2026 are Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping and an untitled Warner Bros event title (both Nov. 20, 2026) and an untitled Disney animation movie on Nov. 25, 2026. During the most recent Thanksgiving holiday stretch (and into Christmas) there was a massive jockey by studios for Imax and PLF screens with Moana 2 and Wicked. The same could be true for next year’s holiday.
No definite and clear word yet if Narnia goes wider or if the streamer will scream their grosses to the sky like they do with their weekly global viewership numbers, but the last time Netflix made a big splash on screens over Thanksgiving was for Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Movie, in 2022 which was part of a $400M acquisition package, and grossed only $15M in its first week exclusive run in what was a limited (less than 900 theaters), largely sold out stunt, a month before winding up on the service. (Johnson’s original 2019 MRC movie Knives Out made $165.3M domestic, $312.8M global in its theatrical run via Lionsgate).
It has been out there that Gerwig has been yeaning a theatrical run for Narnia, the question is whether Netflix completely caves to a wide release. Does Netflix even cave to the demands of other filmmakers for an Imax run on their films? For motion picture studios, Imax screens are an essential ingredient to opening weekend success, and now a streamer, which doesn’t even commit to wide theatrical runs, is moving in on their turf. Hmmm. Some rival motion picture studio executives have been guessing that Netflix would buckle and commit fully to theatrical. At the end of the day, the big screen for the OTT service has been used as a device to remind subscribers to watch movies home. In addition, Netflix has used theatrical to qualify their titles with the Oscars. Netflix operates and books big screen classic venues The Paris in NYC and the American Cinematheque Egyptian Theatre in LA.
It’s not the first time that Imax has teamed with Netflix or for that matter, a streamer. Imax worked with Netflix on the day-and-date release of 2016’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny. They also were involved in a select Imax run of Paul Thomas Anderson’s musical short Anima in June 2019. Imax was also part of streamer Apple’s wide theatrical releases for Killers of the Flower Moon and Napoleon.
“The partnership underscores the value of Imax as a global event platform and reinforces its relationships with the world’s greatest filmmakers. It also demonstrates Imax’s commitment to bringing unique events and experiences to its fans and exhibition partners around the world,” reads a bullet point in a release.
In 2018, Netflix announced it would develop new series and film projects based on C.S. Lewis’ beloved The Chronicles of Narnia series and brought Gerwig on board in 2020. It’s Gerwig’s following up to delivering Warner Bros. their highest grossing movie ever, Barbie ($1.44 billion) which also scored an Oscar win for Billie Eilish and Finneas original song “What Was I Made For?”