Earlier this week, Netflix announced that it plans to spend upwards of $6 billion on content this year, which includes both licensing deals and funding for original shows and movies. Following such an audacious claim, you might not be surprised to learn that Netflix revealed just hours later that it has added five more original indie movies to its 2016 slate.
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First reported by Deadline, Netflix has confirmed that all five films will launch simultaneously across the 190 countries that the Netflix service now reaches. When Netflix calls a piece of content a “global original,” the company really means it.
These are all of the previously announced movies set to hit Netflix in 2016:
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny
- Pee Wee’s Big Holiday
- Jadotville
- Mascots
- Special Correspondents
- War Machine
These are the five new movies that Netflix will finance and distribute this year:
- Amateur — After a video of a talented teenage basketball player goes viral, he finds it difficult to fit in with his team and his coach.
- ARQ — An engineer has to protect technology that could provide unlimited energy to the world from a gang of masked intruders, but the technology creates a time loop to force all of them relive the same day over and over.
- Clinical — A psychiatrist attempts to put her life back together after being attacked, but she can’t escape her past.
- I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House — A nurse is hired to care for an elderly author of ghost stories, and ends up trapped inside a real-life ghost story herself.
- Underground — A pledge in a fraternity has to decide whether or not to stay silent or speak up against the violent hazing rituals.
In addition, Netflix has acquired the rights to Paul Rudd’s The Fundamentals of Caring and Ellen Page’s Tallulah. So even when the company isn’t actively producing content, it’s securing content that will add value to the streaming service.
With a healthy mix of independent films to balance out the relatively expensive blockbusters like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and War Machine, Netflix is going to terrify more than just the television industry in 2016.
