We’ve known for some time that Netflix is trying to be a major player in the television and movie industry, but we got a little reminder of that last night when Netflix teased their biggest exclusive yet. During the Academy Awards, they revealed a new trailer for their upcoming original film starring Will Smith.
The trailer for Bright was only 30 seconds long, so it didn’t give us too much in the way of a plot. But we know the film will star Smith as a police officer for the LAPD who works alongside fantasy creatures. When a new superweapon arises, Smith must team with an orc to help save the world. “In an alternate present-day where humans, orcs, elves and fairies have been coexisting since the beginning of time,” reads the official Netflix press release, “this action-thriller follows two cops from very different backgrounds. Battling both their own personal differences as well as an onslaught of enemies, they must work together to protect a young female elf and a thought-to-be-forgotten relic, which in the wrong hands could destroy everything.”
The real attraction here though, is the cast. Getting one of the biggest actors on the planet is obviously huge for Netflix, and furthers their place as a legitimate movie studio, not just a source for other people’s work. It was back in March that Netflix paid $60 million for the rights to the movie, which is directed by Suicide Squad director David Ayer (and the trailer looks an awful lot like Suicide Squad), but news on the film has been relatively quite since then.
Netflix is no stranger to shelling out for big names. They paid an estimated $60 million back in 2015 for the Brad Pitt led satire War Machine and paid $100 million for the upcoming Martin Scorsese flick The Irishman.
Bright is scheduled to be released in December of 2017, exclusively on Netflix.
