No surprise here, but the No. 2 and No. 3 operators, Regal and Cinemark, won’t be playing Netflix’s Quentin Tarantino script. Once upon a time in Hollywood follow up, The other misadventures of Cliff Booth when it opens on Wednesday, November 25.
That’s because the film, which has an exclusive two-week run in Imax, is on a shortened window. It’s a busy time at the holiday box office with Lionsgate’s highly anticipated hit The Hunger Games: Sunrise over the Harvest and Universal’s Ariana Grande-Ben Stiller-Robert De Niro comedy sequel Son-in-law. AMC (as well as the Indies) are entering the race to Cliff Stand which will arrive on Netflix on December 23 in what is an exclusive 27-day theatrical window for streaming. Note that the circuits play a back-to-back role with Netflix when it comes to the streamer breaking the SVOD cinema window: AMC refused to play Kpop Demon Hunters Singalong (since it had been on Netflix for a little over a month) during the last weekend of August 2025, but Regal, Cinemark and other channels booked it, giving the streamer its first No. 1 film at the weekend box office with $19 million.
Netflix is trying to turn a corner and embrace more cinema with higher quality and longer windows, like the recent blockbuster platform from Cannes winner and this year’s awards contender, The Black Bolaas well as the release of Greta Gerwig in February, Narnia: the magician’s nephew (50 days before streaming) and the upcoming end-of-year holidays Charlie vs. the Chocolate Factory (47 days for streaming).
The streamer even shows respect for the city and its talent in its recipe reporting. However, Netflix believes that only family films are titles worthy of playing longer in cinemas. Money was largely left on the table last holiday season when they gave Rian Johnson Knives Out: Wake the Dead a 17-day theatrical window. The three major circuits were hesitant to play it and the film fizzled with a domestic gross of $4 million. This is compared to the 30-day window Netflix gave Johnson. At Knives Out: Glass Onion which did much better in its limited release over the 5-day period of Thanksgiving 2022 ($13.3 million in 696 theaters for an average of $19,000 per theater). Note before Johnson sells the At loggerheads Netflix sequels during Covid for $400 million, the first film, released by Lionsgate, was a big hit on Thanksgiving 2019 with a 5-day opening of $41.4 million and a domestic finale of $165.3 million domestically and $312.8 million worldwide.
On that note, one wonders why Netflix would grant a shortened window to the follow-up to Tarantino’s Oscar-winning blockbuster, Once upon a time in Hollywood. The original, which earned Pitt a Supporting Actor Oscar, bowed to highest director gross in the US ($41 million) and went on to gross $142.5 million domestic and $409.3 million WW. In a booming box office market, not to mention a Thanksgiving setting where there’s plenty of room, Netflix certainly could have found screens and a long runway after Christmas for Cliff cabin.
Gn entert
