Netflix’s outing at the Cannes Film Festival got off to a rocky start as one of its upcoming films was booed by festival goers.
Okja screening at Cannes halted after 10 mins of booing, hooting & rhythmic clapping, mostly from the balcony. Welcome to Cannes, Netflix.
— Steve Pond (@stevepond) May 19, 2017
OKJA is an upcoming South Korean adventure film that stars Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano and Steven Yuen. While the film has received mostly favorable reviews from critics, the Cannes crowd wanted to express their distaste for the streaming giant before the movie even began.
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Netflix is refusing to screen the film in traditional theaters when it is released on June 28, and film purists are not happy. When the Netflix logo appeared before the film’s screening, a chorus of jeers erupted from the crowd.
However, things got worse from there. The projectionist messed up the project ratio, causing the film to look weird. This caused even more of an uproar from attendees.
“Well, it’s already f–ed,” Vulture editor Kyle Buchanan tweeted. “Cannes goers booed the Netflix card on OKJA, then booed more as the film was mis-projected for the first 10 mins”
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After about 10 minutes of the shoddy screening, the movie was stopped then restarted. Of course, this just gave haters another excuse to boo at Netflix.
#Cannes2017 #Okja. the screening is restarting. more and louder booing for the Netflix logo. pic.twitter.com/SLBUyujfU9
— César del Giudice (@Tequila002) May 19, 2017
After the incident, Cannes issued a statement taking the blame for the faulty first screening as an attempt to take the heat off of Netflix.
“A technical incident disrupted the beginning of the screening of (director) Bong Joon-ho’s film, OKJA,” the statement read. “This incident was entirely the responsibility of the Festival’s technical service, which offers its apologies to the director, his teams, the producers and the audience at the showing.”
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This tumultuous start to the festival shouldn’t harm Netflix too much, as its latest projects are receiving some a positive response.
The service just announced plans for a new season of Arrested Development and a prequel series to Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal.
OKJA will be available to stream on Netflix starting on June 28.
