Glass Onion Could Have done $200 Million at the Box Office

I don’t know about you, but we sure don’t have an extra $200 Million laying around the house. That’s a lot of money no matter how big your company is, even if its the size of Netflix.

Yet this last weekend, Netflix left some $200 million of box office gross on the table when it decided that the follow up to the 2019 RIan Johnson directed smash hit, Knives Out, would not receive a full theatrical release.

According to Shawn Robbins, Chief Analyst at BoxOffice.com, “With a traditional wide release, premium screen spread, and full marketing campaign, I think ‘Glass Onion’ could have generated at least $50 million to $60 million to lead the entire market.”

Following the financial models of box office analysts, a full theatrical window and marketing campaign should have brought in some $200 million of gross revenues to the box office.

With Netflix Basic costing $9.99 per month, Netflix would need 20 million either new or retained customers to make their decision not to release the movie in movie theaters worthwhile. FYI, the company brought in 2.4 million net new subscribers all last quarter.

While there is a place for movies that go straight to streaming, what we’ve seen is an overreaction to the streaming craze of 2020 in which movies that could have made a lot of money in the movie theater are now being pushed to streaming with varying results.