Wake Up Dead Man and the fight over its limited theatrical release

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery should have been a straightforward victory lap for Rian Johnson and Netflix: a buzzy third Benoit Blanc case, a starry cast, Thanksgiving timing, and a built-in fanbase for modern whodunnits.

Instead, its release has turned into a fresh skirmish in the never-ending battle between streaming and the big screen, with Johnson openly venting about how few cinemas are actually allowed to show his latest mystery.

Netflix is giving the film a theatrical window starting November 26, just ahead of the holiday weekend, before it lands on the service on December 12. On paper that sounds generous for a streamer that still insists subscribers should get first dibs at home. In reality, Wake Up Dead Man is only playing in select theaters, and the largest US chain, AMC, has flatly declined to book it. Johnson has confirmed that the movie will instead live in Landmark, Alamo Drafthouse, and a patchwork of independent venues, turning what could have been a mainstream rollout into a scavenger hunt for showtimes.

The director has not tried to hide his irritation. On social media he responded to fans who could not find a local screening by admitting he is just as frustrated that the film is not playing everywhere. He has pointed them to the official Wake Up Dead Man website as the best way to see which cinemas are participating and reminded people that new locations are being added over time. In a move that feels both pragmatic and slightly surreal, he has even suggested that anyone who really wants to see Benoit Blanc on a big screen should politely call or email their local theater manager and ask whether the film is coming.

Johnson also stresses that the movie does not have to vanish the moment it appears on Netflix. If audiences turn up in those first couple of weeks, theaters are free to keep Wake Up Dead Man on their schedules beyond the December 12 streaming premiere. In other words, the theatrical lifespan of the film has quietly been handed to exhibitors and paying customers, while Netflix gets to keep its public line intact: there is no change in strategy, and original movies still exist primarily to feed the subscription machine.

That gap between corporate talking points and lived reality is exactly where the backlash is brewing. For a chunk of the audience, it is hard to feel sympathy for a filmmaker who knowingly took a huge streaming deal, then seems shocked when the fine print limits his reach on the big screen. Some still have a bitter taste from his time in a galaxy far, far away and the way he pushed back on criticism of The Last Jedi. To them, the sudden posture of being on the audience’s side over showtimes rings hollow, almost like another round of Hollywood gaslighting.

Others do not resent Johnson so much as the situation itself. Fans who went out of their way to catch Glass Onion during its brief run remember driving to another city, juggling work days, or pouncing on limited seats just to see Benoit Blanc with a crowd. This time, some of those same people struck out completely on tickets and discovered that, without that communal rush of discovery, their hype for Wake Up Dead Man had quietly dimmed. When you turn theatrical cinema into an event available only to the most dedicated, you risk training everyone else to shrug and wait for the streaming date.

Plenty of viewers have already made that calculation. For them, the idea of phoning up a theater or chasing down a boutique chain feels like homework, not entertainment. They are content to let Netflix do what Netflix does best: drop the movie into their queue in mid December so they can watch Benoit Blanc untangle another impossible crime from the comfort of the sofa. In that context, Johnson’s plea looks less like a rallying cry and more like a director trying to claw back a slice of the old theatrical glory he traded away.

The irony is that Netflix clearly understands the value of theaters when it suits a campaign. The company has flirted with larger big screen pushes for prestige projects and recent genre hits, talked up the way KPop Demon Hunters exploded only after finding an audience on the platform, and is even sending the finale of Stranger Things season five into cinemas day and date with its streaming debut. Yet its film boss still insists this is all in service of the same core promise: exclusive first run movies at home, with theaters treated as a limited bonus, not the main attraction.

Wake Up Dead Man lands right in the middle of that contradiction. Early critical reaction, including a solid seven out of ten from IGN, positions it as a worthy third chapter that finally leans into the classic mystery energy some felt was missing from the earlier films. For fans of Benoit Blanc, the question is no longer whether the movie is worth seeing, but how and where they will choose to see it. Some will chase down those Landmark and Alamo screenings, keeping the tradition of a packed whodunnit screening alive for at least one more holiday. Others will simply wait a couple of weeks and let the Netflix algorithm serve it up. Either way, Johnson’s latest case has already solved one mystery: in 2025, the real crime is how hard it can be to watch a film the way its creator clearly wishes you could.