Netflix’s Oscar Bait

The film Beasts of No Nation opens on a group of young African refugees playing with an old, disemboweled television set. The camera peers through the broken screen as the kids start putting on a show they call “Imagination TV.” They act out kung fu battles, dance scenes, and slapstick sequences. Considering the film’s controversial release by Netflix as Oscar bait, it reads as a metaphor: Here’s a ragtag crew determined to tear apart old TV and build something new.

When Netflix bought Beasts of No Nation for $12 million last July, it rocked Hollywood. The brutal drama about child soldiers in an unnamed West African country was directed by one of today’s hottest young directors, Cary Fukunaga (True Detective, Jane Eyre), and co-stars one of Hollywood’s hottest actors, Idris Elba (The Wire, Thor, and a million James Bond rumors). But if Netflix’s purchase was a surprise, its audacious distribution strategy was shocking: On Oct. 16, Beasts of No Nation will open in about 30 theaters and be simultaneously released to the company’s 65 million subscribers.