The backstories of Netflix’s relationships with these films just won't matter a jot to the many people who don't care to know them. The Cloverfield Paradox is bad, and Annihilation is a decidedly leftfield offering with no major profile outside of enthusiast circles. Depressing thoughts, perhaps, but also accurate. No-one in the US will notice, and the more dedicated film fan elsewhere will probably just be a bit annoyed that the contrivance means they won’t get to see Garland’s latest on a big screen. They might get round to watching it one day, if they particularly like Natalie Portman. most people) really see when The Cloverfield Paradox happened, while the rest of us were flipping out over the disruption of the movie distribution model as we know it? They saw a crap, low-profile sequel to a film they vaguely remembered spat out into the direct-to-video market, just as crap, low-profile sequels have been since the year dot.Īnd what will they see when Annihilation goes straight to Netflix outside the US? They'll see another sci-fi film they've never heard of hit the list, to sit alongside all the others they haven’t heard of. The mundane reality outsideīecause what did the less engaged, non-headline-following, more mainstream, casual viewer (aka. But outside of the nerd-press bubble we happily inhabit, I feel the the reality of the story is rather different. It’s very easy to get caught up in the above narrative - particularly, ironically, if you are part of the hyper-engaged media audience that lives to speculate and commentate on the minutiae of these things. Having earned the hearts and minds of the world's TV and film buffs, and grown to a position of serious power and influence, Netflix can now call the shots, shaking up the distribution model, taking whatever it wants, and blowing apart perceptions of how film and TV works on a whim. And Annihilation, the upcoming and tipped-to-be-brilliant new film by Dredd writer and Ex Machina director Alex Garland, has just had its entire cinema release outside of the US and China replaced by a Netflix launch. Speaking of JJ Abrams, the long-awaited, long speculated-upon Cloverfield Paradox recently jumped straight from ‘unannounced rumour’ to ‘Streaming right now’ in the time it took a Superbowl advert to play. And so, the rebel reputation spreads.Īnd now, after funding a whole glut of in-house feature films over a remarkably short period of time, Netflix has apparently started to steal externally produced, Hollywood movies directly from under the noses of cinemas. For the long-term film fan, crushed by Hollywood’s endlessly turning millwheel of sequels, remakes, safe schlock, and ever-spiraling cinema ticket prices, it has been impossible not to feel some degree of glee in watching all of this unfold. Thus, the establishment seems in a constant tension with Netflix, just as it works with it for widespread home distribution. When the mainstream cinema establishment feels threatened by new pretenders, the mainstream establishment gets defensive and pissy in the extreme, as exemplified by the unified response to other streaming initiatives at Cinema Con a few years ago, when only JJ Abrams would speak in favour of a more eclectic, dynamic future for distribution. Some cinemas in Okja’s country of origin even refused to screen it as a result of its online benefactor. Okja, the brilliant, South Korean fairy tale of young girl and giant pig friend, received a cavalcade of petty boos when it screened at Cannes, ‘earning’ the abuse only through the appearance of that big red logo at the movie's start.
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