Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery has achieved Netflix's highest opening week ever for a theatrical outing. The film is Rian Johnson's follow-up to his popular 2019 whodunit Knives Out, which introduced Daniel Craig's eccentric but effective detective Benoit Blanc. It is set to exclusively stream on Netflix beginning December 23, but that release was preceded by a one-week limited release for Thanksgiving weekend, starting November 23, which is so far the widest theatrical opening that any Netflix film has ever seen.

Per Deadline, now that Thanksgiving week is over, Glass Onion's opening box office run has officially taken the #3 slot, landing above any other adult release despite only playing in 638 theaters. Its five-day total of $13.8 million is expected to land at $15 million by the end of its one-week run. This is by a wide margin the highest performance that a Netflix theatrical release has earned, ahead of their 2021 hit Red Notice by a factor of about $13.5 million.

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Will Glass Onion's Success Change Netflix's Theatrical Release Strategy?

Miles with Duke and Whiskey in Glass Onion

Typically, Netflix only pursues a theatrical release for films that are seeking Oscar legibility, which requires a theatrical run for films to be considered. This has gone over well in the past for films like Alfonso Cuarón's Roma, which went on to win Best Foreign Language Film, Best Director, and Best Cinematography. However, even a Netflix project on the higher grossing end like Red Notice – which featured A-list stars Ryan Reynolds, Dwayne Johnson, and Gal Gadot – typically doesn't perform well during its brief theatrical stint, even if it performs well on their platform. For instance, Red Notice became the #1 most-watched film on the platform of all time when it debuted, despite only earning $1.5 million in theaters.

However, this slightly more expansive limited release for Glass Onion seems to have broken the Netflix theatrical curse. There are likely several factors contributing to this. First is the film's A-list ensemble, which in addition to Craig includes Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson and Dave Bautista. Second, the original Knives Out was already a huge success in theaters, earning $312.9 million off a budget of $40 million.

The excellent gross for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery partially comes from Netflix making the confident move to play it more prominently, in more theaters during a holiday weekend. However, the fact that they made that move at all speaks to the fact that the company may be experimenting with alternative theatrical windows for their exclusives. Should these experiments continue and have success, their films may keep receiving proper theatrical wide releases while Netflix becomes their eventual exclusive streaming home, a model that Prime Video has used for previous releases like 2016's Manchester by the Sea.

More: Glass Onion Ending Explained: Breaking Down Every Knives Out 2 TwistSource: Deadline