Netflix is giving us terrific theatrical movie experiences — and trying so hard not to

polygon.com:

2023 kicked off with Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos reiterating that in spite of the success Rian Johnson’s crowd-pleasing mystery-comedy Glass Onion had in its brief theatrical release, Sarandos had no regrets about not putting it into more theaters. The release functioned as it was meant to, as a promotional campaign for the movie’s availability on streaming. In other words: Netflix is not in the movie-release business, it’s in the Netflix business. And its business model does not typically involve anyone having one of their best movie-theater experiences of the year.

And yet that’s what I got from Netflix in October 2023. At the Paris Theater, a one-screen New York City movie house, I got the best tickets I could for a sold-out screening, and spent two absolutely rapt hours watching David Fincher’s The Killer, which chronicles, with ironically clockwork precision, the old movie standby of a botched assassination. The rhythms of its editing, the enveloping Fincherian color scheme, and the crisply brutal punch of its sole major fight scene were all especially satisfying on what Nicole Kidman’s AMC ad calls a “huge silver screen.” (And yes, there was “sound that I can feel”; the theater just upgraded to a Dolby system.)

But The Killer didn’t play at Nicole Kidman’s AMC. It did turn up at some Regal and Cinemark theaters, but it’s hard to say how many, because it was only in theaters for a couple of weeks, during which none of its box-office totals were reported, including the usual statistics like screen count and per-screen average. For most people, The Killer was only a theatrical release in theory. In reality, it’s a Netflix movie.

In six months or so, the streaming company might release a vague statement about The Killer’s