Netflix leases its way into the Oscars

Movie streamer reopens famed Manhattan theatre to screen its films

Since it began releasing highend films several years ago, Netflix has faced a tricky question: where to put all of them?

Many theatres wouldn’t show the movies because Netflix released them too quickly online. And pure digital distribution is insufficient to satisfy either the rules of the Motion Picture Academy or the tastes of highend directors.

Netflix has now answered that question. The streaming giant has signed a lease with the owner of New York’s recently closed Paris Theater to reopen the theatre and screen its films there on an ongoing basis.

“After 71 years, the Paris Theatre has an enduring legacy, and remains the destination for a one-of-a-kind movie-going experience,” Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos said in a statement. “We are incredibly proud to preserve this historic New York institution so it can continue to be a cinematic home for film lovers.”

The company said it will use the theatre for special events and commercial screenings of select films. It did not specify the deal’s terms or length.

The Paris sits on a prime piece of real estate straddling midtown Manhattan and the borough’s Upper West Side, near the entrance to Central Park. The theatre is Manhattan’s last single-screen palace — a symbol of a pre-multiplex era — as other members of the endangered class such as the nearby Ziegfeld no longer operate as movie theatres.

The deal was signed with the New York developer Sheldon Solow, who in addition to the Paris owns 9 West 57 St. and other prominent towers in Manhattan. Solow, who Forbes recently valued at more than $5 billion, did not renew the lease of City Cinemas, the Paris’ longtime tenant.

But Netflix made a deal with Solow to show “Marriage Story,” its current Noah Baumbach Oscar hopeful, in the theatre shortly afterward. That agreement turned out to be a prelude to a larger pact.

Netflix is the first pure streamer with a high-profile theatre play. Amazon flirted with a buy of the Landmark chain last year before deciding against it.

Netflix is currently using Broadway’s Belasco Theater to show Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” an unusual arrangement that most experts said was not sustainable for future films; waiting for Broadway theatres to be available at the moment of release left too much to chance.

The largest movie theatre chains in the United States have refused to show Netflix films because the company as a rule does not honour an exclusive theatrical window of between 30 and 90 days. But the Motion Picture Academy, which administers the Oscars, requires films be shown for a week in New York or Los Angeles to be eligible for prizes.

Maybe more important, many directors with which Netflix wishes to be in business want a prominent theatrical platform for their films.

Netflix is negotiating to buy the Egyptian Theatre in L.A.