Frame One

Netflix will report box office numbers for the first time. For years the company released a few films in cinemas, mostly to qualify them for awards, and kept ticket sales private. That is now changing, starting with the Spanish-language drama La Bola Negra.

It looks like a small administrative decision. It is closer to a change in how the biggest streamer treats cinema.

What Netflix announced

Netflix will publish theatrical grosses for six films, according to Variety’s reporting:

• La Bola Negra, by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi
• Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew, directed by Greta Gerwig
• The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, directed by David Fincher
• Ink, directed by Danny Boyle
• The Mosquito Bowl, directed by Peter Berg
• an animated film, Charlie

The first one out is La Bola Negra, a drama from the directing duo known as Los Javis. It won the best director prize at Cannes, shared with Pawel Pawlikowski’s Fatherland. It opened in US and Canadian cinemas on October 16 and arrives on Netflix on December 2.

The longest theatrical window Netflix has given a film

Between October 16 and December 2, La Bola Negra plays only in cinemas for 47 days. Netflix’s earlier prestige releases got far less. Marriage Story had 30 days, The Irishman had 27 and Roma about three weeks.

The record may not last. According to Dark Horizons, Charlie is set for 47 days and Narnia for 50.

For context, the Paramount and Warner Bros. settlement requires wide releases to stay at least 45 days in theaters. Netflix is now offering windows in the same range on its own, without a court order. The details of that settlement are in our article on the Paramount and Warner Bros. deal.

Why box office numbers matter

Box office is the shared language of the film industry. Without it, cinema owners cannot judge how a Netflix film performed, and independent distributors cannot compare their releases with it.

Netflix withheld figures even for KPop Demon Hunters, which reportedly earned about $18 million over two days in August 2025 and gave the company its first number one weekend at the box office.

The timing is not random. Netflix recently lost the fight for Warner Bros. to Paramount, and publishing its grosses puts it on the same footing as the traditional studios. As TheWrap noted, it is another step in a slow thaw between Netflix and cinema operators.

What it says about streaming and cinema

Streaming still dominates viewing. According to Nielsen, streaming originals such as War Machine and The Rip made up 12 of the 20 most watched general-audience movies in the world over the past year.

But a film watched at home and a film that filled a theater are different things for audiences, critics and awards voters. A long cinema run brings reviews, conversation and a place in the awards season. For exhibitors it brings something they rarely had from Netflix: a title they can plan around, with numbers they can see.

What to watch next

The open question is whether this is a lasting change or an awards-season strategy. Three things will answer it: whether Netflix keeps publishing grosses after these six films, whether the long windows stay long, and whether the numbers hold up once Narnia arrives.

One of the six, Ink, already sparked its own debate about generative AI in filmmaking. That story is covered in our piece on what Danny Boyle’s film proved.