Should Netflix’s ‘Glass Onion’ stay in theaters longer?
Updated: 11:42 a.m. Sept. 7, 2014
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Netflix founder Reed Hastings looks on. ( AP )
As Netflix prepares to open on Thursday with the biggest television debut in years, the question of whether the streaming giant will release an original movie has taken on extra meaning.
Netflix hasn’t even been around long enough to make many comparisons in terms of movies, and it’s hard to imagine it doing so in the weeks ahead.
But what it might do, in terms of launching series, is worth thinking about.
It’s a move Netflix made with its original movie The OA, the story of a teenage girl growing up in a post-9/11 world.
The OA, which debuted in October 2012, was a hit, and it won critical praise and accolades, but when it aired on Netflix in January, it was the kind of Netflix-made piece of television that had been around for years, and had never been broadcast on the streaming service. It was an ambitious movie that Netflix had never had the chance to produce.
With the opening of The OA two weeks ago, Netflix put behind it one of a handful of TV series it has under consideration that already has a live audience. It also gave some breathing room to the others — the ones that remain in the works.
Among those series, both of which will be available on Netflix on Thursday:
• “House of Cards,” the political drama from David Fincher and Ron Howard. Fincher and Howard turned the tale of a political campaign into a gripping crime drama. Fincher directed the show on Netflix.
• “Silicon Valley,” the comedy inspired by an off-Broadway musical about tech culture, directed by its star, Armie Hammer, and written by his co-star, Zach Galifianakis.
• “13 Reasons Why,” a series based on the book by Jay Asher, about 13 teenage girls living in a small town where they make 13 different decisions about their lives that lead to a high school massacre. Netflix, in its limited run of nine episodes, has been praised for having “a real heart” and for focusing “