Rian Johnson Wants A Longer Theatrical Run For 'Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery'

TV & Film

Dec 5

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery was only released in about 600 theaters over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Additionally, the theatrical run only lasted one week. For a normal movie, that would indicate a huge flop. However, Glass Onion is no ordinary film. It is a Netflix film. Since Netflix is primarily a streaming service, the short and limited release was strategic. The idea is to generate buzz for the movie so people will stream it when it is released on the service on December 23rd. Netflix admits that they could have made a lot more money by giving it a wide theatrical release.

At least one person is not a fan of Netflix’s strategy, the film’s director, Rian Johnson. Johnson believes that Glass Onion deserved more time in theaters and hopes to get it back into theaters. He said, “Any theaters we can get it into at any point, I’m pushing for.” Although he says that he is grateful for the theatrical run it did get, the film could have done so much better than its roughly $13 million. For comparison, Knives Out, Johnson’s previous film in the series earned $313 million in theaters.

Johnson also pointed out that Glass Onion will be available to theaters when it starts streaming on Netflix. However, he doesn’t know if theaters will be able to show it during the busy holiday week. Johnson continued by saying that he hopes the third Knives Out release, which will be another Netflix film, will be a wider and longer theatrical release than Glass Onion.

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