There were a lot of strange movie rollouts in 2022, thanks to the great post-pandemic selections that were racing to make it into the theaters. One of the more perplexing moves was Netflix going ahead with a very short theatrical release for Glass Onion in November, then making it available on the streamer a month later just in time for you to force your dad to watch it because he really likes puzzles.
The move was risky, but early streaming numbers seem promising! The Knives Out sequel racked up 127.25 million hours watched in just its second week on the streamer, sitting only behind Red Notice and Don’t Look Up. That brings the total viewing numbers up to 209.4 million hours (or about 19 million trips from New York to Greece). Considering the fact that this data is just after the first 10 days, the movie will likely surpass those titles. Nobody should tell The Rock, though. He’s already going through a lot.
Despite the experimental release, Johnson had expressed his desire to keep the film in theaters longer in order for more fans to have that experience. “I’d love it to be [in theaters] longer; I’d love it to be in more theaters,” Johnson recently told The Hollywood Reporter, adding when the movie hits Netflix, it will be able to reach a wider audience. “I appreciate that Netflix has done this, because this was a huge effort on their part, and the theater chains, to reach across the aisle and make this happen. I’m hoping it does really well so we can demonstrate that they can complement each other.” It clearly worked!
It’s unclear if Netflix will want to do the same type of release with the third film in the franchise, which is also set to get a Netflix release sometime in the coming years. Hopefully, Hugh Grant will sign on to star in that one when he’s done with Paddington 3 (if I type it, it will happen).