Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos Has No Regrets About Glass Onion's Lost Box Office Potential
Detective extraordinaire Benoit Blanc has previously tackled and solved the mysterious knife-related murder of Harlan Thrombey. Then, he went ahead and unpeeled the rotten onion surrounding wealthy (but wildly clueless) entrepreneur Miles Bron. Now, the genius private eye will have to face his most formidable challenge yet: the case of the unwanted box office revenue.
On its surface, it goes against everything that you'd expect from a money-grubbing movie studio. Rian Johnson's "Glass Onion," riding high on the good will and breakout theatrical performance of its 2019 predecessor "Knives Out," enjoyed a successful but extremely limited release rollout ahead of its debut on Netflix. Adding insult to injury, subsequent reporting revealed that the streamer had every opportunity to keep the sequel in theaters for much longer, but outright rejected the opportunity to, well, make more money hand over fist. What could they possibly have been thinking, the fools! Surely they've come to regret their remarkable shortsightedness ... right?
Well, Netflix's Ted Sarandos is singing a very different tune to the public. Addressing the oddly unprecedented move for the first time, the CEO praised the platform's strategy regarding "Glass Onion" during a quarterly earnings call on January 19, 2023 (via Deadline). According to Sarandos, he claims he's "thrilled with every aspect of the release" and has no regrets about the decision to keep it as a one-week limited release in theaters. Essentially, it's an outright admission that the stunt was meant as nothing more than a commercial for the sequel's Netflix debut a month later. But could there be something more to this mystery?
Welcome to the streaming era
Never before has the movie-watching experience been as fragmented as it is today. As much as theaters remain the lifeblood of the film industry, more and more studios are realizing the potential of recouping profits through streaming. Of course, some have managed to figure out that it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. If Warner Bros. and HBO Max are anything to go by, then it's fair to say that successful theatrical marketing campaigns can then lead to similarly successful streaming numbers — case in point, "The Batman."
But Netflix, unsurprisingly, has other ideas. Obviously, theaters are inherently the main rival to the streaming service, which historically has only conceded theatrical windows when it qualifies Netflix originals as awards contenders. So, in that light, it makes sense why Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos would say the following about "Glass Onion" and its limited run in theaters:
"I think what you saw was a lot of excitement. We drove a ton of buzz with that theatrical release, and we created a bunch of demand and that demand we fulfilled on our subscription service. Our core business is making movies for our members to watch on Netflix, and that's what we're really focused. Everything else is really a tactic to drive excitement around those films."
Using a term as nakedly capitalistic as "tactic" might be the kind of subtlety that Miles Bron would fully endorse, but I suppose we have to give credit for honesty? In any case, it goes without saying that Netflix didn't devote exorbitant resources to "Glass Onion" and its future sequel for the benefit of theaters. It's all a ploy to vacuum up as many subscribers as possible, for better or worse.
"Glass Onion" is currently streaming — where else — on Netflix.