Picture: DreamWorks Animation
DreamWorks Animation has been hitting its stride lately with Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Orion and the Dark for Netflix, and Kung Fu Panda 4. Their next major title, which is already being tipped for the Oscars, is The Wild Robot. It is now hitting theaters in the United States and will join Netflix, but not until mid-2025.
Directed by Chris Sanders (The Croods, Lilo & Stitch), the new film follows a robot who becomes shipwrecked and has to learn about his harsh surroundings. Think Castaway meets The Iron Giant!
Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, Mark Hamill, and Catherine O’Hara are among the impressive voice cast you’ll hear throughout the hour and 42-minute runtime of the film.
Reviews, as we’ve already alluded to, are absolutely superb, with the film carrying the coveted Certified Fresh and 98% rating. One outlet wrote, “A rare cinematic experience, a very special and transfixing film that hits all the right buttons.”
When will The Wild Robot stream on Netflix in the United States?
Let’s begin with the United States, where we absolutely know that the movie will stream on Netflix, albeit not anytime soon. We know it’s coming to Netflix thanks to a deal struck back in July 2021 that extended an existing deal, bringing new DreamWorks and Illumination movies to the streamer in the US.
Netflix will get the movie in what’s called a pay-1 window. That window is 18 months and begins around 4 months after the movie drops in theaters. Netflix shares this window with Netflix (see below timeline), with Peacock taking the first 4 months, Netflix the next 10, and Peacock again for the final four.
Release Schedule For Illumination Dreamworks Movies Netflix
So, broadly speaking (this is highly subject to change and is not 100% accurate), here’s what the streaming schedule for The Wild Robot should be:
- Pay-1 Peacock – January 27th, 2025 for 4 months
- Pay-1 Netflix – May 27th, 2025 for 10 months
- Pay-1 Peacock – March 27th, 2026
Will other Netflix regions stream The Wild Robot?
Yes, but we don’t have a definitive deal in place like we do for the United States. Instead, we can rely on prior DreamWorks movies to see when they were made available.
Regions that should see the movie drop around the same time as the US (~May 2025) will be Australia, Belgium, and South Korea, which all get DreamWorks movies in that first window period. From there, Canada, the United Kingdom, Latin American countries, and some Asian territories will receive the film around two years after release (~late 2026).
Are you going to be checking out The Wild Robot in theaters or will you be waiting for it to drop on Netflix shortly? Let us know in the comments.
