Bong Joon-ho’s “Okja,” among the finest films of 2017, was among the many first high-profile auteur movies to be distributed by Netflix. Financed by the streamer itself with the purpose of boosting Netflix’s then-impending launch in South Korea, “Okja” premiered in competitors on the 2017 Cannes Movie Competition with out a lot clarification on whether or not Netflix supposed to ever put it in theaters, which prompted a rule change on the Croisette. It was ultimately launched straight to streaming, with out industrial theatrical play wherever on the planet save for South Korea.
By the way, the movie’s launch in Bong’s house nation might supply a clue as to why “Okja” largely skipped theaters altogether. On the time, Netflix nonetheless insisted that its few theatrically-distributed movies should get day-and-date releases, opening concurrently on Netflix and in theaters, which violated conventional theatrical home windows of exclusivity — prompting the three largest theater chains in South Korea, which accounted for 93% of the nation’s screens, to refuse to display “Okja.”
An analogous factor had occurred two years earlier, when Cary Joji Fukunaga’s “Beasts of No Nation” was boycotted within the U.S. by the AMC, Regal, Cinemark, and Carmike chains. By the point Bong made “Okja,” Netflix might have calculated that an American theatrical launch wasn’t even value attempting for. The streamer would ultimately budge and begin permitting unique theatrical home windows for flagship releases like “Roma” and “The Irishman.”