Why didn’t Net­flix let Bong Joon-ho shoot Okja on 35mm?

The debate around Net­flix and their poten­tial threat to tra­di­tion­al movie-going con­tin­ues to rage. On one side of the coin, col­lab­o­ra­tions with indie film­mak­ers and esteemed auteurs like Bong Joon-ho, whose new film Okja plays in com­pe­ti­tion in this year’s Cannes Film Fes­ti­val, ensure that more and more diverse cre­ative voic­es are being heard.

The oth­er side of the argu­ment is that the stream­ing giant’s dis­re­gard of tra­di­tion­al release mod­els and recent intro­duc­tion of fea­tures like ​‘Skip Intro’ dra­mat­i­cal­ly alters the way audi­ences con­sume cinema.

Bong dis­cussed the dilem­ma recent­ly with Vari­ety, shed­ding light on the com­pro­mis­es he had to make in order to be grant­ed cre­ative free­dom on his lat­est project.

“Net­flix guar­an­teed my com­plete free­dom in terms of putting togeth­er my team and the final cut priv­i­lege, which only god­like film­mak­ers such as Spiel­berg get,” he said. ​“At first, Dar­ius Khond­ji, my cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er, and I want­ed to shoot Okja on 35mm, but Net­flix insist­ed that all Net­flix Orig­i­nals be shot and archived in 4K. Khond­ji then fig­ured that we would use Alexa 65, which equates to a 70mm film in dig­i­tal for­mat. It makes a great cin­e­mat­ic vibe.”

Okja is one of two Net­flix titles cho­sen to com­pete at Cannes, along with Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Sto­ries. Out­rage from exhibitors over the selec­tion of films not set for the­atri­cal release prompt­ed the fes­ti­val to issue a new direc­tive: all future com­pe­ti­tion films must also be screened in French cinemas.

When asked whether the com­pro­mise was worth it, Bong respond­ed, ​“All films are even­tu­al­ly archived in DVDs, Blu-rays and in oth­er dig­i­tal media after screen­ing in the­atres for a while. I don’t think mak­ing a film backed by Net­flix makes much dif­fer­ence for me as a filmmaker.”

Net­flix and oth­er stream­ing ser­vices are unde­ni­ably hav­ing a huge impact on the cin­e­ma land­scape as we know it, so it’s com­fort­ing to hear Bong speak about this com­pro­mise fond­ly. Although for tra­di­tion­al dis­trib­u­tors this will come as anoth­er major blow.

After its Cannes pre­mière Okja will have a lim­it­ed the­atri­cal release in the US before hit­ting Net­flix on 28 June.

Want to have your say on the future of film dis­tri­b­u­tion? Get in touch @LWLies