Having already won some Emmys and Golden Globes for their original content, Netflix is ramping up their original feature film content. However, to qualify for any film awards, Netflix will have to release their films into select theaters for at least one week. So far Netflix has mostly either signed multiple picture deals, or signed up for sequels. They've got a four-picture deals with both Adam Sandler and the Duplass Brothers, and sequels to the last Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Pee-wee Herman films. Following a weekend where Fifty Shades of Grey earned $90 million at the box office, they've now got their first original one-off. A Christian Grey Jamie Dornan African combat film.
Dornan already co-stars in the Netflix series The Fall. His new venture with the streaming red envelope will be a war film called Jadotville. The film is based on the 1961 events at Jadotville, in which a small outpost of Irish U.N. troops came under attack by 3,000 Congolese troops, led by French and Belgian mercenaries working for mining companies.
Not only does Dornan also star in a Netflix series, but to prep for this film, Netflix could already recommend you watch their own Academy Award-nominated documentary Virunga which is set in a Congolese wildlife refuge where mining companies are again trying to take over. Is Netflix carefully constructing a "recommended for you" movie universe?
Netflix plans to release Jadotville in all their territories in 2016, and if the film from first time director Richie Smyth is good enough for a rollout, perhaps into a few theaters, and festivals as well.
[via Variety]
