Netflix’s The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth will not play at Regal or Cinemark when it opens on Wednesday, Nov. 25, a sharp opening-day split for a sequel arriving in the middle of the holiday box office. AMC and Indies are committing to the run, and the film is also getting a two-week exclusive run in Imax before it hits Netflix on Dec. 23.
That leaves the movie with a 27-day theatrical window, a short stretch for a title tied to Brad Pitt, who won the Supporting Actor Oscar for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The timing matters because the holiday corridor is already crowded, yet Netflix is still choosing a faster path to streaming rather than a longer theatrical stay.
The comparison points make the choice stand out. Netflix gave Rian Johnson’s Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man a 17-day window, and that release fizzled with a $4M domestic take after the top three circuits balked at playing it. Johnson’s Knives Out: Glass Onion got a 30-day window and still made $13.3M at 696 theaters over the 5-day Thanksgiving 2022 frame. Cliff Booth lands in between those two models, longer than Wake Up Dead Man but shorter than Glass Onion.
That middle ground is the friction. Netflix has said it is trying to turn a corner and embrace theatrical more with better, longer windows, and it has longer plans for La Bola Negra, Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew and Charlie Vs The Chocolate Factory. But on this title, the company is still moving quickly, even as the holiday box office is busy with The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping and Focker-in-Law. The studio is testing how much theater support it can get for a film that clearly has an audience, without giving it the kind of run that might let word of mouth build.
That makes Dec. 23 the real deadline. If the movie draws, the window is short enough that the box office story will be written quickly; if it does not, Netflix can move on before the holiday rush is over. Either way, the opening is not just about where Cliff Booth plays. It is about how much time Netflix is still willing to give one of its biggest theatrical bets before bringing it home.
