Netflix’s $90 million movie has its first trailer.
On Thursday, the streaming service gave the attendees of San Diego’s Comic-Con the first look at Bright, the big-budget fantasy epic starring Will Smith that Netflix acquired last year. Netflix paid a reported $90 million for rights to the movie, which is the most the company has spent on a feature film to date.
Bright represents the first time that Will Smith has worked on a streaming film project, which is a major step for an A-list movie star who has spent years headlining films aimed at racking up blockbuster ticket sales at movie theaters. Earlier this summer, Smith defended Netflix’s stance on eschewing wide theatrical releases for its films at the Cannes Film Festival in France, where the streaming company premiered two films for the first time. The actor’s production company, Overbrook Entertainment, produced Bright and also helped finance the movie.
Directed by David Ayer (Suicide Squad, Fury), the sci-fi movie stars Smith as police officer in an alternate reality where humans live alongside fantastical creatures such as fairies, elves, and Orcs. The movie will debut on Netflix on December 22.
Watch the trailer, here:
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The movie is the latest example of Netflix’s massive spending on original programming, with the company shelling out more than $6 billion this year alone on content such as original TV series and feature films in an ongoing attempt to attract more subscribers around the world.
While Netflix’s original content strategy has mostly focused on high-profile TV series projects and documentaries, the company has been investing more in feature films over the past few years. In addition to the two movies that debuted at Cannes (one of which was the critical favorite Okja, which premiered online last month), Netflix has also signed multi-film deals with comedian Adam Sandler and the company paid a reported $60 million for War Machine, the modern war satire headlined by another major movie star (Brad Pitt) that started streaming earlier this summer.
