Netflix Announces Its Next Big Thing & It May Make You Leave Your House Or Actually Get You Off The Couch

Once upon a time, watching a Netflix movie meant lying in bed with a pint of ice cream. But now, fans of both the traditional theater experience and the streamer’s impressive film catalog can rejoice: Netflix is moving to the big screen.

Netflix just announced that it has struck a deal with the Paris Theatre, New York’s last-standing single-screen cinema. The theater closed in August, but temporarily reopened for limited screenings of Netflix’s Noah Baumbach-directed Marriage Story. But now, Netflix will continue to use the theater moving forward “for special events, screenings, and theatrical releases of its films,” according to a press release.

This year, Netflix has distributed several big-budget, big-name films, from Marriage Story to The King to The Irishman. In order for these movies to earn awards including Oscars, as per Academy rules, they must play in theaters for at least a week. But the streaming service encountered some problems trying to show these movies in chain theaters: The Irishman will not show in any cinema owned by AMC, Regal, or Cineplex because, according to Deadline, “the four week progression to [on-demand streaming] remains unacceptable to those chains.” With its own theater, Netflix will be able to make its own rules — and its original movies will be able to qualify for award nominations.

The future options are endless. Will the theater only play their award season shoo-ins, or will we also be able to see the streamer’s lighter offerings, like the upcoming To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before sequel? Could Netflix soon open up more theaters around the country (or the world)? For right now, though, you can still snag tickets to see Marriage Story at the historic Manhattan venue — and scope out Netflix’s new space.