Net­flix is releas­ing an unfin­ished Orson Welles film

Net­flix has announced that it has acquired the rights to Orson Welles’ The Oth­er Side of the Wind, an unfin­ished film that they will com­plete and restore.

The illus­tri­ous director’s incom­plete fea­ture was a Hol­ly­wood satire, cen­tred on a once great filmmaker’s (played by John Hus­ton) strug­gle for a come­back. It began shoot­ing in 1970, and by 1972 Welles report­ed that the film­ing was ​“96 per cent com­plete”. Then in 1979 legal com­pli­ca­tions over the own­er­ship of the film led to the neg­a­tives being stored in a Paris vault, where they remained until they were moved to Los Ange­les this month.

The move comes after a cam­paign lead by actor-direc­tor Peter Bog­danovich, who was a part of its cast, and its pro­duc­tion man­ag­er Frank Mar­shall. They will over­see the pro­duc­tion with pro­duc­er Fil­ip Jan Rym­sza, going through more than 1000 reels of film to come up with the final edit.

Bog­danovich announced his inten­tion to com­plete the film all the way back in 2004, so this announce­ment comes after a long process of legal dis­putes and deals made with those who have rights over the unused footage.

Ted Saran­dos, chief con­tent offi­cer for Net­flix, has remarked, ​“Like so many oth­ers who grew up wor­ship­ping the craft and vision of Orson Welles, this is a dream come true.” This comes in a year where the stream­ing ser­vice has already shown an increased effort to acquire and dis­trib­ute films, though this restora­tion of a 47-year-old film is new avenue for the platform.

Hope­ful­ly this is an indi­ca­tion of a trend, and the VOD ser­vices that dom­i­nate the home enter­tain­ment indus­try will con­tin­ue to use their resources to help pre­serve cul­ture in the future.