Netflix‘s ambitious drama “La Bola Negra” will play in theaters for four weeks before landing on the streaming platform.
The film is set to debut in theaters on Nov. 6 before hitting on Netflix on Dec. 4. With this fall release date, Netflix is positioning the film as an awards contender. The streamer nabbed “La Bola Negra” at the Cannes Film Festival, where the movie premiered to rave reviews and sparked a bidding war before tying for the festival’s best director prize.
This marks one of the wider theatrical commitments for Netflix, which has recently been warming to cinemas for certain projects. Later this year, David Fincher’s “The Adventures of Cliff Booth,” the unofficial title for the sequel to Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” will get a two-week exclusive run in Imax before going to Netflix. Then in 2027, director Greta Gerwig’s “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” will be the streamer’s first movie to receive a traditional theatrical run.
Directed, co-written and produced by the Spanish duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi (known as Los Javis), “La Bola Negra” is a queer epic that spans 85 years of Spanish history, from the ’30s to modern day, and is inspired by an unfinished fragment by Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca. Told through a triptych, the film chronicles the story of three men whose lives are connected through desire, loss and what one generation leaves to the next. The ensemble includes Spanish musician Guitarricadelafuente in his acting debut, “Elite” actor Miguel Bernardeau, Carlos González, Milo Quifes, Lola Duenas, Julio Torres, Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close.
“When we began writing ‘La Bola Negra,’ we wanted to tell a story about freedom, legacy, and the importance of LGBTQ+ visibility. Above all, we wanted to honor the generations of people whose courage and sacrifice made our freedoms possible today,” Calvo and Ambrossi said in a statement. “We couldn’t imagine a better home than Netflix to bring this story to audiences across the United States. We are deeply grateful and excited that its message will reach millions of viewers and help carry Federico García Lorca’s legacy to audiences around the world. This is the beginning of an extraordinary new chapter for ‘La Bola Negra,’ and we can’t wait for audiences to discover it.”
