Disney backs the 45-day theatrical window it already beats by two weeks
Variety’s new box office story says Disney, Paramount and Universal have all agreed to keep movies in theaters at least 45 days. Disney’s been doing about 60 for years, and Avatar: Fire and Ash ran past 90.
Variety ran its big box office story today, and the number everyone’s grabbing out of it is 45.
Disney, Paramount and Universal have all agreed to keep their movies in theaters, and nowhere else, for at least 45 days after opening. That stretch is the theatrical window. Buy a ticket or wait a month and a half.
“It’s incredibly important for the industry to unify around a theatrical window,” Josh Greenstein, co-chair of Paramount Pictures, told Variety. His point was ending the confusion, so nobody assumes they can wait a couple weeks and catch it on the couch.
Sony chairman Tom Rothman put the reversal more bluntly in the same story. The whole streaming-first push, he said, misread how the business actually works, and nothing else creates the same urgency as a movie people are seeing in theaters right now.
Theater owners have been asking for this since 2020. They’re finally getting it.
Disney’s theatrical window has been longer than 45 days since 2022
Disney isn’t the studio changing anything here.
Andrew Cripps, who runs Disney’s theatrical distribution, spent his CineEurope presentation last month pointing out that Disney keeps movies in theaters about 60 days on average, longer than anybody else, and that Avatar: Fire and Ash stayed more than 90. “Cinemas matter,” he told the room.
TheWrap put Disney’s 2025 average at 57 days before PVOD, the premium rental window where you pay twenty bucks to watch at home. Nothing hit Disney+ or Hulu until at least three months after opening.
Disney does one more thing theater owners like, and it’s the part nobody’s agreeing to copy. It won’t advertise a movie’s Disney+ debut until right before that date arrives. Chris Johnson, who runs the Classic Cinemas chain, told TheWrap that embargo matters as much as the window itself, because what scares theaters isn’t the streaming release so much as the audience knowing the streaming release is coming.
So agreeing to 45 days costs Disney nothing at all. It signs on, gets credit for helping the industry pull together, and keeps doing what it was already doing.
Fair caveat, though: Disney can afford it. Its slate leans tentpole-heavy, and a Marvel or Pixar release has legs that hold a theater for two months. A studio with a thinner year has a harder time promising the same thing.
Universal went from 17 days to seven weekends
Universal is the studio that actually moved, and it moved a long way.
During the pandemic, Universal cut deals with exhibitors that let some movies reach PVOD in as little as 17 days. Three weekends. That’s the arrangement that nearly wrecked the theater business, and it’s why theater owners spent years treating Universal as the enemy.
In March 2026, Universal promised five weekends this year and seven weekends starting in 2027. Seven weekends is the 45 days. Reminders of Him went first under the new rule, with The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey on the same year’s slate.
Paramount’s promise came from David Ellison at CinemaCon in April. By the end of that convention, every big studio was saying some version of the same thing.
The 45-day window is a floor, not a ceiling
Nobody in the theater business thinks 45 is where this stops, and the loudest person saying so was Steven Spielberg.
He took the CinemaCon stage for Universal, which is releasing his Disclosure Day, praised the studio’s 45-day commitment, and then turned the room into an auction. “Do I hear 60 days? 90 days? 120 days?” he asked, per TheWrap. The room loved it.
He won’t get 120. But research firm Omdia found the ten biggest movies in North America averaged 51 days in theaters last year, up from 45 the year before. And fewer than half the movies that opened above $50 million actually got a 45-day window at all. The number’s creeping up whether anyone promises anything or not.
Which puts Disney somewhere familiar, y’know? Everybody’s bidding toward a number Disney passed three years ago. The real test comes the first time one of these studios watches a tentpole open soft, and somebody in a meeting asks whether 45 days is a promise or just a nice thing they said in April.
Article compiled with the help of the Pirates & Princesses newsroom.
Pirates and Princesses is your destination for Disney news, theme park updates, and the pop culture you love. From Disney cruises and travel tips to Disney fashion, food, collectibles, and movie news, PNP covers it all. Visit us at piratesandprincesses.net for daily coverage. Follow PNP on Facebook and Instagram, and listen to the Pirates & Princesses podcast on Apple Podcasts and YouTube.
Hat Tips:
Variety (July 15, 2026), the box office cover story, the Greenstein and Rothman quotes, and the three-studio 45-day agreement
Variety (March 12, 2026), Universal’s move from 17-day windows to five and seven weekends
Screen Daily (June 2026), Cripps at CineEurope on Disney’s ~60-day average and the Avatar: Fire and Ash run
TheWrap (April 2026), the Spielberg auction quote, Disney’s 57-day 2025 average, the Disney+ advertising embargo, and Johnson’s comment
No Film School (April 17, 2026), confirming Spielberg as the CinemaCon speaker
Celluloid Junkie (June 18, 2026), Omdia’s windowing data