One of the most anticipated potential awards contenders for the Fall is set to debut this coming week in the form of Andrew Dominik’s Marilyn Monroe biopic “Blonde”.
The project marks the “Chopper” and “The Assassination of Jesse James” director’s first feature in a decade, and itself has been in the works for several years longer than that.
The film casts Ana de Armas as Marilyn and is very upfront about its content, so much so the film has earned an NC-17 rating – the first in Netflix’s history.
Speaking with Deadline recently, Dominik has slapped down talk that Netflix got nervous enough about the rating they tried to sell it off, and in fact they stood by him and his creative vision:
“The film would not exist without Netflix. No, Nobody else would pay for the thing except Netflix. They were the ones that were brave enough to take it on. But we’re in a time period that’s all over the place so naturally there were some anxieties.
In the end, they completely supported what I wanted to do, to the point where I had actually signed a piece of paper saying I would deliver an R-rated movie. I think everybody realized that the NC-17 rating would hurt the film. But, they’ve supported the version of the film that I made and you can’t ask for more than that. It’s the only film that I’ve made where I’ve not had to make concessions.”
Whilst reviews have offered unanimous praise for de Armas’ performance, reaction to the film itself is proving far more divisive. Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale, Evan Williams, Xavier Samuel, Garret Dillahunt, Julianne Nicholson, Scoot McNairy and Toby Huss co-star.
“Blonde” begins streaming on Netflix from this Wednesday, September 28th.
