Netflix’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery Will Spend One Week In Theaters

Netflix and traditional film are usually mortal enemies; many film organizations don’t want to even count Netflix movies as being eligible for awards, while Netflix would generally love it if you stayed home and watched The Adam Project instead. The two warring factions seem to have reached a temporary accord, though, as Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery will be spending a week in theaters this fall ahead of its Christmas release.

Starting Wednesday, November 23, up through November 29, director Rian Johnson will get his wish: you’ll be able to see Glass Onion in theaters as part of what Netflix is calling a “theatrical sneak preview event.” AMC, Regal, and Cinemark theaters are all participating in the event. This isn’t a full theatrical release, however. While a full theatrical release would usually consist of 2000-3000 screens, Glass Onion will show on just 600. Once the run ends on November 29, the movie will disappear until its Netflix release on December 23.

This is a noteworthy move due to the inherently adversarial relationship between Netflix and theaters, but it seems to signal more of this kind of thing. AMC head Adam Aron said that Netflix and theaters have “cracked the code,” while Cineworld CEO Mooky Greidinger said that the “experiment is a breakthrough for both the theatrical industry and Netflix and can page the way for stronger cooperation in the future as Netflix big budget movies for sure belong on the big screen first.”

Glass Onion has performed well with critics thus far and is sitting at a 91% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Netflix acquired Glass Onion and a potential sequel in April of 2021 for a reported $465 million. The film will once again star Daniel Craig as the Southern-born detective Benoit Blanc, but he’s the only returning cast member that we’re currently aware of. Instead, his new mystery will deal with a whole new group of suspects including Dave Bautista, Jessica Henwick, Ethan Hawke, Kate Hudson, Janelle Monae, and more. As with Knives Out, Glass Onion is directed and written by Johnson himself.