The third installment of the Knives Out films, Wake Up Dead Man, is now in theaters. But don’t feel bad if you didn’t notice. It’s an extremely limited release in just a tiny handful of theaters before it starts its Netflix run tomorrow on December 12. It’s not an ideal arrangement for a movie with big commercial possibilities, and writer-director Rian Johnson made his unhappiness known in public comments right out of the gate.

In this, Johnson was prescient, because Wake Up Dead Man has done anemic business so far compared to the first two films of the franchise, Knives Out and Glass Onion. All this despite very strong reviews. This is partly explained by some brutal yet increasingly typical facts of Netflix theatrical releases:

Netflix was unable to book the top three circuits — AMC, Regal, and Cinemark — who were insisting on a 30-day theatrical window like Glass Onion’s, not a 17-day theatrical window. Hence, Wake Up Dead Man wound up playing the arthouse Alamo, Landmark, and mom-and-pop-circuits. In addition, the movie didn’t get a theatrical P&A campaign like Glass Onion did. Johnson himself took to social media and, in answering a fan, expressed, “I’m as frustrated as you that it’s not everywhere.”