What came to be the final film directed by the legendary Orson Welles (viewed as his 'comeback picture’), The Other Side of the Wind began production 1970, with a six year shooting schedule due to difficulties with production, financing, and casting, as well as a complex legal problems that led to the film’s negative been impounded, leaving the film unfinished by the time of Welles’ passing in 1985. Starring John Huston as a director mounting a commercial comeback (Welles’ insisted it was not autobiographical), it was shot as a mockumenatry satire of the passing of Classic Hollywood, and incorporated a film-within-a-film that spoofed the works of Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni. After nearly 40 years of remaining dormant, the movie was originally announced to be completed and screened to coincide with the centenary of Welles’ birth in 2015, but date date came and went with no sign of the finished movie. In May of last year, an Indiegogo campaign was launched to raise $2 million to complete the movie. The total raised was $400,000, but producer Frank Marshall was still fully behind the project, and vowed to put together the first 15 to 20 minutes of the movie to win over investors. That perseverance has paid off, with Netflix announcing that they have acquired the global rights to the movie, and will finance the completion and restoration of the picture, as well as producing a companion documentary, as part of a $5 million deal. Work has already begun on the project, with the original negatives, dailies, and other footage already arriving in Los Angeles to resume the restoration process.
Yes, it’s incredibly ironic that Netflix will be completing and releasing the final film of one of cinema’s greatest talents (especially one that chronicles the death of one era of Hollywood), considering the leaps and bounds the streaming service has made in making the traditional cinema experience obsolete. But I don’t think we ever saw this coming. Classic movies (i.e. before 1980) have never really been Netflix’s forte, instead focusing on original content and new releases, so this is a really big deal, and that’s even before we take into account we’ll finally get to the final work from one of the masters of cinema.
Yes, it’s incredibly ironic that Netflix will be completing and releasing the final film of one of cinema’s greatest talents (especially one that chronicles the death of one era of Hollywood), considering the leaps and bounds the streaming service has made in making the traditional cinema experience obsolete. But I don’t think we ever saw this coming. Classic movies (i.e. before 1980) have never really been Netflix’s forte, instead focusing on original content and new releases, so this is a really big deal, and that’s even before we take into account we’ll finally get to the final work from one of the masters of cinema.
