NetFlix Inks Deal to Allow NYC’s Paris Theater to Remain Open for Business

By Tom Roberts

Netflix Inc. to the rescue.

The giant streaming service has inked a lease that will allow New York’s Paris Theatre to remain open for business.

“The 71-year-old art-house theater, the city’s last single-screen cinema, shut down over the summer after its previous lease expired,” reported Crain’s New York Business. “Netflix has already been using the theater to screen “Marriage Story,” a film it produced from director Noah Baumbach. Going forward, it plans to use the midtown Manhattan theater for special events, screenings and the theatrical release of its films.”

Netflix released news of the deal in a Twitter thread Monday morning, “on the heels of the streamer’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos hinting earlier this month that the company was hoping to keep the theater open on a permanent basis,” said bgr.com. “The 581-seat cinema was shuttered in August, though Netflix reopened it this month in order to host an awards-season screening of Noah Baumbach’s new film Marriage Story starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson.”

“After 71 years, the Paris Theatre has an enduring legacy, and remains the destination for a one-of-a kind movie-going experience,” Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer, 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.”

Netflix, noted The Hollywood Reporter, has “long had to rely on a patchwork of independent theaters to play its original movies — such as Marriage Story or The Irishman — since the majority of circuits won’t carry a title that doesn’t play on the big screen for roughly 30 days. Having access to the Paris or the Egyptian on a permanent basis is a win for Netflix, even as it continues to contract with such indie chains as the Landmark to play its films, particularly during awards season.”

The Paris opened in 1948, the piece continued, “with actress Marlene Dietrich cutting the ribbon for then-owner Pathé Cinema. The locale originally showed French titles, the first of which, La Symphonie Pastorale, ran for eight months. It broadened its slate of offerings in subsequent years while remaining a haven for foreign-language fare. The Paris was the first theater in the U.S. to offer Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 movie Romeo and Juliet.”

The Paris specialized in showing foreign and independent movies. “It announced its closure in late August, but reopened for a limited run of Marriage Story. Netflix is also in talks to acquire Los Angeles’s iconic Egyptian Theater. The final frontier: a movie theater!,” reported vulture.com.