The fact that this went straight to Netflix without even being released in cinemas is kind of a big deal.
The Super Bowl is traditionally a time and a place for major movie studios to plug the trailers of their most anticipated releases for the year ahead.
On Sunday night, for example, a new trailer for Mission Impossible: Fallout was released, while there was also a teaser trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story, with the full-length version set to arrive on Monday.
Netflix, however, went and trumped everyone by not just releasing a trailer for The Cloverfield Paradox, but by dropping the movie in its entirety on the streaming service.
The third movie in the Cloverfield series, directed by Julius Onah, produced by JJ Abrams and starring Chris O’Dowd, its release had been repeatedly postponed until Sunday night, when the entire movie surfaced on Netflix just a couple of hours after the first trailer.
Skipping a cinematic release and unveiling it at a time when it’s most likely to get the world’s attention is a big coup for Netflix and as an exercise in flexing their Hollywood muscles, it was quite an impressive one.
As for the movie itself, it follows a group of international astronauts on a space station using experimental technology that has an unexpected result, leaving the team isolated and fighting for their survival.
It’s available on Netflix right now.
