Two of America's Biggest Cinema Chains Refused Brad Pitt's New Film. The Reason Is a Calendar.

Netflix assembled the kind of package exhibitors are supposed to say yes to: David Fincher directing, Quentin Tarantino writing, Brad Pitt returning to the role that won him an Oscar, in a follow-up to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. For its IMAX run, two of the three biggest chains in America said no.

The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth opens in IMAX theatres on November 25 for a two-week exclusive engagement, then arrives on Netflix on December 23 — 28 days later. Regal and Cinemark declined to book it. The refusals surfaced on October 30, first reported by Puck. AMC will carry the film, alongside independent theatres: roughly 200 IMAX screens in the United States and about 523 venues worldwide on the film's official site as of November 2.

What the refusal costs, in screens

IndieWire put Regal's domestic IMAX inventory at about 100 screens and Cinemark's at roughly 20. Those are the premium rooms — the ones a chain can fill at premium prices over the Thanksgiving frame, the busiest corridor of the movie year. Regal's senior vice president of U.S. content, Brooks LeBoeuf, explained the decision to TheWrap in terms that weren't really about this film: "Regal's premium screens are among our most valuable assets," he said, and allocation turns on "the level of commitment distributors make to the theatrical marketplace." Shortened windows, he added, "have a direct impact on those decisions."

Regal and Cinemark aren't leaving the screens dark. Lionsgate's The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping opens November 20, and both chains intend to hold their IMAX houses on it through its second weekend — which is the Thanksgiving weekend Cliff Booth wanted.

The history in one paragraph

This argument has run for a decade, and the sides keep swapping. In August 2025, Regal and Cinemark booked Netflix's KPop Demon Hunters sing-along event while AMC declined. This time AMC is the chain showing the Netflix film. Nobody's position is theological; it's arithmetic about which title earns more on a scarce screen in a specific fortnight. What's new is the scale of the title being refused: a Fincher–Tarantino–Pitt package is the sort of film the window system was built to protect, and two chains decided a 28-day window made it worth less to them than a second weekend of a franchise prequel.

What happens next

Tickets went on sale November 2 at the film's official site. The run is IMAX-only and two weeks long, which makes it a genuine scarcity event — if you want to see it on a big screen, AMC or an independent is the whole list, and early December is the effective deadline. Netflix gets its event either way; what it doesn't get is the two chains' screens, or the precedent that its windows buy automatic access to them. The next Netflix title that wants a premium run now knows the price of admission is measured in weeks.