UPDATE: According to Variety, Netflix has acquired the “Black Ball” in deal believed to be in the $5M-range. This was the most predicted for the film.
I honestly expected the film to be bought for much more — remember when Netflix bought “Emilia Perez” for $12M? In case you’re wondering, the deal includes a multi-week theatrical rollout for the film, which would make it eligible for awards, including the Oscars.
EARLIER: So, after “The Black Ball (“La Bola Negra”) received a 16-minute standing ovation at Cannes, Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo’s ambitious epic has sparked a multi-studio bidding war for U.S. rights. Among the bidders are A24, Mubi and Netflix.
The film is actually not doing that well on the critics grids. It’s at 2.1 on the Screen Jury Grid, 2.05 on ICS, 1.2 on Moiree and 2.1 on Cahiers du Cinéma — however, it’s at 86 on Metacritic (based on 7 reviews), and 87% on Rotten Tomatoes, but something tells me that score will go down.
“The Black Ball” is an ambitious but wildly uneven 2.5-hour Spanish drama blending historical fiction, queer melodrama, and meta-literary adaptation. With no clear Best Picture contender at Cannes this year, the US press—especially Oscar-minded journalists—tended to bestow that status on the film on the second-to-last day of the festival.