Earlier today, Netflix rolled out a brand new trailer for its upcoming original movie War Machine. Starring Brad Pitt and Topher Grace, the film is an adaptation of the book The Operators: The Wild & Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan and charts the rise and fall of a U.S. General involved in the United States’ military campaign in Afghanistan. The film is a dark comedy, which is to say it probably won’t be very funny, a theory seemingly confirmed by the bizarre trailer below.
The crazy thing is, Netflix paid a reported $60 million for the film back in 2015, easily making it Netflix’s biggest investment in an original film at the time. Since then, Netflix reportedly paid $90 million for a Will Smith vehicle titled Bright.
Truth be told, Netflix hasn’t had the best of luck with original movies so far so it will be interesting to see if Brad Pitt has the requisite star power to attract eyeballs outside of a traditional theater.
War Machine will hit Netflix on May 26 of this year and the film’s description reads:
In a film for our times, writer-director David Michôd (Animal Kingdom) recreates a U.S. General’s roller-coaster rise and fall as part reality, part savage parody – raising the specter of just where the line between them lies today. His is an anti-establishment, pro-soldier exploration in the form of an absurdist war story of a born leader’s ultra-confident march right into the dark heart of folly. At the story’s core is Brad Pitt’s sly take on a successful, charismatic four-star general who leapt in like a rock star to command NATO forces in Afghanistan, only to be taken down by his own hubris and a journalist’s no-holds-barred expose. War Machine addresses the debt we owe to soldiers to question the purposes to which they are being directed.
The trailer, complete with Brad Pitt showing off a completely bizarre and unbelievable accent can be viewed below.
All in all, we can expect even more original films from Netflix in the coming months. As we reported earlier this month, the streaming giant is devoting more and more resources towards bringing original film content to viewers. In 2017 alone, the company plans to release upwards of 30 feature-length original films across a multitude of genres. A few weeks ago, the streaming giant even signed a deal with Robert De Niro for a mob movie focusing on famed union leader Jimmy Hoffa.
