Imax CEO Wades Into ‘Cliff Booth’ Debate — “Frankly, I Don’t Understand”

Imax chief executive Rich Gelfond said he doesn’t get why some circuits won’t show The Further Mis-Adventures Of Cliff Booth when the Netflix films starts a two-week Imax run Thanksgiving weekend.

“Frankly, I don’t understand why anybody wouldn’t play it,” he said on a call after terrific quarterly earnings.

That Imax frame was originally claimed by Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew before the Greta Gerwig film, also from Netflix, moved to February. It will open as an Imax exclusive into wide release with a full theatrical window.

Cliff Booth — Quentin Tarantino’s follow to Once Upon A Time In Hollywood — starts a 27-day exclusive theatrical window Nov. 29 on Imax and at indies, which can play it in standard format. The nation’s top chain AMC Theatres will show it, but not the number two and three circuits, Regal and Cinemark. Both referred to the shortened window and will populate their Imax screens with The Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping, which opens the previous weekend.

“if you’re a circuit that has hundreds or thousands of screens, you could play Hunger Games on lots of screens, and you could play Cliff Booth on your Imax screens, and it’s a win-win … They have that flexibility if they want to use it,” said Gelfond.

“But I think some exhibitors are kind of standing on ceremony and saying, ‘we don’t like the Netflix window around it’. I personally think that’s a battle that’s already been fought. And, by the way, a lot of the exhibitors played Demon Hunters and did very well. And that was after it came out on Netflix.”

He’s referring to Kpop Demon Hunters Singalong from summer of 2025, which AMC refused to play since the film had been on Netflix for over a month, but Regal, Cinemark and other chains did book.

Gelfond said he’s seen an extended clip of Cliff Booth and believes that “if you like Tarantino, and you like Brad Pitt, and you like David Fincher — and who doesn’t? — that’s going to be a surprisingly successful run.”

“And I hope, and I think, by the way, that Hunger Games is going to be really strong. The pre-sales on Hunger Games are very good. But I think they [theater chains] could have played both. I don’t understand it.”