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Imax Near Replacing Narnia Exclusive Thanksgiving 2026 Release Slot
Greta Gerwig’s Narnia, moving from a Thanksgiving 2026 release to open in theaters on Feb. 12, 2027, before heading to Netflix, has left Imax having to fill a now-open exclusive Thanksgiving berth later this year.
And Imax CEO Rich Gelfond was chomping at the bit on Tuesday to announce his exclusive replacement release for Thanksgiving 2026, but decided against making that the headline. “Obviously it’s a good time of the year to release a movie, and I was hoping on this call to be able to announce what’s going into that slot, and we’re really close,” Gelfond told the J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference in Boston during a session that was webcast.
“We’re on the verge of replacing it,” Gelfond added as he appeared via a video link, as he continues to recover from a temporary medical leave to undergo treatment for pneumonia and cannot do air travel. The original pact Imax had with Netflix for Narnia was to have seen the C.S. Lewis book series adaptation get a global release in Imax theaters during the key Thanksgiving holiday period, two weeks before the online debut.
Gelfond added that, despite the release date shift for Narnia, the exclusive Thanksgiving release for the film technologies company will continue this year and into future years. “Longer term, I think the model that we put together will continue to exist. You know, it may be a different partner, it may be different specific terms. But I’m quite confident that we’re having an Imax exclusive release along the lines of what we talked about,” Gelfond added.
He also discussed Walt Disney unveiling Infinity Vision, a new certification for premium large format (PLF) theaters, starting with the September re-release of Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame, followed by the December release of Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Doomsday, while Imax locked up Dune 3 for an exclusive three-week run in a major holiday showdown.
Gelfond said Imax had a deal with Warner Bros. and Legendary to release Dune 3, which ruled out play for Avengers: Doomsday on his giant screens. “We wish we could have played Avengers, and Disney understands that, and I think Disney’s going to be great with it,” he argued.
Gelfond added that, absent Imax screens for Avengers: Doomsday, Disney branding PLF screens as Infinity Vision was little more than a marketing play. “They created kind of a marketing vehicle called Infinity Vision, which enables them to ‘brand’ their release. It’s important to note there’s no additional screens. It’s just kind of a branding move on their part,” he insisted.
Gelfond also expressed frustration with an Imax stock price that has fallen of late as investors worry about Hollywood tentpoles that underperform, while others break out at the multiplex. “I think people are needlessly worried, but we’re not,” Gelfond added as he expressed confidence in the movie slate coming out of the major studio supplier for the rest of 2026.
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EXCLUSIVE: Maude Apatow and Mike Faist are set to star in The Maid of Orleans, Sarah Elizabeth Mintz’s follow-up to Good Girl Jane. Mintz penned the script that she will also direct. Astute Films is financing the pic.
The film follows a young woman who navigates her new job by assisting a famously talented and complicated director on a French production of Joan of Arc. Shooting begins this week.
Mintz will produce along with Shuli Harel and Jeff David.
Up next, Apatow will make her feature directorial debut with Poetic License, starring Cooper Hoffman, Andrew Barth Feldman, and Leslie Mann. The film, also produced by Apatow under her Jewelbox Pictures banner, first premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival to rave reviews, followed by a well-received screening at South by Southwest. It was recently acquired by Sony Pictures Classics and will release next spring. Apatow is perhaps best known for her performance as Lexi Howard on HBO’s acclaimed Emmy and BAFTA-nominated series Euphoria, which recently concluded its three-season run. Apatow is represented by WME, Mosaic, Ziffren Brittenham.
Faist is coming off rave reviews in the limited series East of Eden, which bowed last week on Netflix. The series also stars Florence Pugh and Christopher Abbott. He is repped by WME and Brillstein Entertainment Partners.
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EXCLUSIVE: Kylie Jenner is set to headline and executive produce Bachelorette Weekend (working title), a thriller drama, which is finalizing a deal for a straight-to-series order at Hulu, Deadline has learned.
This marks the first major role for Jenner who is following the career trajectory of older sister Kim Kardashian, a social media and reality star and business mogul branching out into acting and producing.
Kardashian is executive producing Bachelorette Weekend alongside Jenner. The project, created by author/screenwriter Lauren Oliver, comes from Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment.
In the series, a bachelorette weekend turns deadly when the bride (Jenner) winds up murdered in the pool, and her closest girlfriends all become suspects. Jenner’s role is described as the North Star of the series, which pieces together the events that led to the murder.
Jenner, Kardashian and Oliver executive produce with Aaron Kaplan; Jaiden Kaplan co-executive produces. Kapital Entertainment is the co-studio alongside 20th Television.
A rep for Hulu declined comment.
Bachelorette Weekend is based on an unpublished book by Flora Collins which was developed by Oliver’s IP packaging company StoryGiants. The TV adaptation, written by Oliver, was developed internally at Kapital by Aaron Kaplan and Jaiden Kaplan.
The spec script was sent to Kardashian to produce. She felt it was a great starring vehicle for Jenner and passed it onto her with both quickly coming on board. Through Kardashian’s first-look deal at 20th Television, Bachelorette Weekend was pitched to sibling Hulu, which bought it preemptively. After some back-and-fourth, the Disney streamer took it off the market with a straight-to-series order, which is still being negotiated.
Jenner telegraphed her interest into acting with her buzzy cameo in the Charli XCX’s A24 movie The Moment; she has been a fixture in the movie circles over the past couple of years, attending major events with her partner Timothée Chalamet. Like the rest of the Kardashian-Jenner clan, including Kim, Jenner is a star and executive producer on the hit Hulu reality series The Kardashians, which returns for Season 8 on Oct. 8.
Kardashian is the star and executive producer of her own scripted series on Hulu, legal drama All’s Fair. She also headlines and produces the upcoming Netflix movie The Fifth Wheel and executive produces the upcoming Netflix YA drama series Calabasas and the unscripted series Teen Moms: Baseball, which just premiered on Paramount+.
Bachelorette Weekend expands Kapital’s slate at Hulu where the company also has in the works drama series You Deserve To Know, starring The Vampire Diaries duo of Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley, and What Remains, starring Kerry Washington. This marks the second green light for Jaiden Kaplan who also conceived and produced Kapital’s two One Mile streaming movies starring Ryan Phillippe, which are currently topping the Paramount+ daily chart at No.1 and No. 2.
Oliver’s previous works include multiple bestselling YA novels, including Before I Fall, the Delirium trilogy and Panic, which she later adapted into the streaming TV show on Amazon Prime of the same name. She is the author of psychological thrillers The Girl in the Lake and The Sleepwalker (June 2027) which is in feature development at Amazon/MGM, with Lauren adapting and with Scarlett Johanssen and Scott Stuber attached as executive producers. The first book in Oliver’s debut cozy mystery series The Die Hards will be published under her pseudonym Oliva Lawrence by Minotaur in Fall 2027.
Jenner and Kardashian are repped by WME. Oliver is repped by Verve and Jamie Feldman.
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EXCLUSIVE: The new Warner Bros’ Christian Parkes-led contemporary film label, Clockwork, which we first told you about last December, will be making the segue to the new Paramount Warner Bros merger aka Skydance.
Clockwork was on an internal list of Warner Bros labels shown in-house at Paramount. In addition, we’ve heard from reliable sources that all Warner Bros’ label heads (i.e. James Gunn and Peter Safran at DC, Richard Brener at New Line, etc) will stay in charge of their domains at the new conglomerate. As previously reported, all film label heads roll up and report to Paramount Pictures Co-Chairs, Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein.
Clockwork’s first theatrical release is on Oct. 16, the unearthed spicy Catholic taboo 1971 Ken Russell directed The Devils which will be screened in a 4K restoration. The whole idea why former Warner Bros Motion Picture Bosses Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy launched the label with former NEON Chief Marketing Officer Parkes was to give the studio some A24-like mojo a shot in the arm. Clockwork is an entry point for edgy filmmakers with moderate sized budgeted pics. The label’s original output was for two-to-three films annually.
Clockwork, we understand, will co-exist with Paramount’s current global acquisition division and Republic Pictures, led by Wicker producer Lia Buman. That Melrose lot department made a big purchase out of Cannes with Canal’s Midnight Library for $36M (which includes domestic and a bulk of foreign). In addition, Republic Pictures is the label responsible for the 2024 Oscar nominated Munich Olympics thriller, September 5.
Projects coming into Paramount from Clockwork include the next movie from Anora Oscar winner Sean Bailey, Ti Amo! (financed by FilmNation). There’s also Clockwork’s mid-teen millions North American pick-up out of the Cannes market, Park Chan-Wook’s western The Brigands of Rattlecreek starring Matthew McConaughey, Austin Butler, Pedro Pascal and Chinese star Tang Wei (Decision to Leave). Also in the Clockwork portfolio is the Sean Penn directed feature about the January 6th Capitol riots.
Paramount didn’t return request for comment.
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Maude Apatow And Mike Faist To Star In ‘Maid Of Orleans’
Red Wings' Kris Draper to oversee pro scouting amid front office changes: Sources
Kylie Jenner ‘Bachelorette Weekend’ Series Gets Hulu Order (Exclusive)
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