Netflix is handing its Spanish-language Oscar hopeful “La Bola Negra” the longest theatrical runway in the streamer’s history.
The queer epic from Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, the Spanish duo known as Los Javis, was originally slated to open in theaters Nov. 6 ahead of a Dec. 4 streaming bow. The film will now arrive in theaters Oct. 16 and land on Netflix Dec. 2, a 47-day exclusive window and the widest theatrical commitment the company has given one of its titles to date. The previous record-holder belonged to Noah Baumbach’s relationship drama “Marriage Story” which had a full 30-day window in 2019. Other notable wide releases included Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” which Netflix gave a 27-day window the same year, and Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma,” which played roughly three weeks in 2018 before streaming.
The move underscores how selectively, and how aggressively, Netflix has begun courting exhibitors on prestige plays. David Fincher’s still-untitled continuation of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” written by Quentin Tarantino and starring Brad Pitt, opens Nov. 25 for an exclusive two-week global Imax engagement before streaming Dec. 23. Greta Gerwig’s “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” follows Feb. 12, 2027, the first Netflix release to receive a conventional theatrical rollout, with a 49-day window preceding its April 2 streaming debut.
Netflix landed U.S. rights to “La Bola Negra” at the Cannes Film Festival following a competitive bidding war, after the film premiered in competition to a standing ovation and went on to tie for the festival’s best director prize.
The streamer has since acquired Canadian rights as well. The film is set to screen in the Toronto International Film Festival’s Special Presentations section, where star Penélope Cruz, who won the best supporting actress Oscar for “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” will receive a Special Tribute Award at the TIFF Tribute Awards.
Directed, co-written and produced by Calvo and Ambrossi, “La Bola Negra” (“The Black Ball”) spans 85 years of Spanish history, from the ’30s to the present day, and draws on an unfinished fragment by poet and playwright Federico García Lorca. The ensemble includes Spanish musician Guitarricadelafuente in his acting debut, “Elite” actor Miguel Bernardeau, Carlos González, Milo Quifes, Lola Dueñas, Julio Torres, Cruz and Glenn Close.
The film is one of the streamer’s awards priorities for the fall, which will also include the Fincher sequel, Danny Boyle’s Venice Film Festival opener “Ink,” Peter Berg’s war drama “The Mosquito Bowl” and Marie Kreutzer’s “Gentle Monster,” also a Cannes acquisition.
In his review, Variety film critic Guy Lodge wrote there is “enough confidently muscular filmmaking here” to make the directors’ next move worth watching, praising the film’s attempt to trace the connective tissue between generations of gay Spanish men.
The film is a Movistar Plus+ Original Film in collaboration with Suma Content Films, produced by Telefónica Audiovisual Digital and Los Esquiadores AIE, and co-produced by El Deseo and Le Pacte, with the participation of Atresmedia and CREA SGR.