Netflix co-C.E.O. Ted Sarandos has finally and officially agreed to an exclusive Imax run for Greta Gerwig’s big-budget Narnia movie, based on the Chronicles of Narnia books by C.S. Lewis. Netflix tells me the film will hit about 1,000 Imax screens worldwide on Thanksgiving Day 2026 and will not appear on Netflix until Christmas. That’s a four-week window of global exclusivity, though Imax has only guaranteed to play the film for two weeks. A third week could be added based on demand, and there’s a chance the movie could go to some non-Imax theaters before it drops on Netflix. Plus—and this was a key concession—Netflix has committed to market the Imax release like a typical theatrical tentpole movie and identify Narnia as a “Netflix/Imax” title from the outset. Gerwig will likely shoot the movie using both Imax and regular cameras for the dual release. 

A big, precedent-setting deal months in the making, negotiated mostly between Netflix’s chief content officer Bela Bajaria, Imax C.E.O. Rich Gelfond, and Gerwig and her team at UTA and the Johnson Shapiro law firm. Multiple stakeholders weighed in, including theater owners, who initially weren’t thrilled at the prospect of an Imax theatrical exclusive but came around once they understood that the alternative was no theaters. But the big yes was from Sarandos, whose desire to placate a major filmmaker ultimately trumped his religious aversion to the multiplex (beyond the streamer’s token awards-qualifying and promo runs).