Kathryn Bigelow’s “Aurora” was supposed to start shooting this year, but the New York Times is reporting that the filmmaker dropped out of the project “a few months ago.”
You might be asking why? It has to do with the streaming service’s new chief of content, Dan Lin, who is now focused in making films “more about audience, and less about auteurs.” Goddammit. This news comes only a week after David Lynch revealed that Netflix rejected a pitch for his next film.
So, after years of funding passion projects for the likes of Scorsese, Coen, Lee, Cuaron, Inarritu, Campion, Cooper, Soderbergh, and Bong, among many others, the streaming giant has finally decided that it should stick to producing the kind of brainless crap that tends to invade its weekly top 10 films. Call it a business decision.
Nevertheless, Netflix still has David Fincher and Noah Baumbach currently under contract, and set to direct to a few more films before the agreements expire in a few years. Maybe they’ll try to buy them out? Who knows. With Lin at the helm now, a cleanup is in order.
It’s been seven years since Bigelow released her last film, 2017’s “Detroit.” It turns out the Oscar-winning filmmaker has had “Aurora” brewing over at Netflix since 2022, which is when she signed on to direct the film.
Bigelow, 72, is the filmmaker behind such films as “The Hurt Locker,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Near Dark,” “Point Break,” and the highly underrated “Strange Days.” She was one of the hottest filmmakers in the aughts, having directed two Best Picture nominees, and having won then Best Director prize for “The Hurt Locker.”
As expected, Snyder's latest is being torn apart by TIFF attendees. No mercy given. The film, which had its world premiere this evening, is being called by some one of the worst movies to ever premiere at the festival.