You just had to know that Disney would find a way to get its hands on “Parasite” somehow, right? Well, it’s happened, though in a bit of a roundabout way.
According to Variety, Hulu (owned by Disney) has secured exclusive US streaming rights to Bong Joon Ho’s Oscar-winning film, “Parasite,” and will launch the film on the platform in April. After dominating the year-end awards discussion in 2019, “Parasite” went on to win four Oscars this month, including a milestone win for Best Picture (the first time a foreign-language film has earned the prestigious honor). Now, it appears that if you were hoping to stream the film on Netflix, Amazon, or elsewhere, you’re out of luck. Hulu is the only destination for the film.
Since the historic win a few weeks back, “Parasite” has become the subject of intense interest from all sorts of film fans, from cinephiles to casual moviegoers alike. There has been a big uptick in box office, which is fairly commonplace for Oscar-winning films, and NEON, the film’s distributor, went so far as to give the film a recent IMAX run to celebrate. Now, “Parasite” is poised to break $50 million domestically and enter the top 3 foreign-language films of all time in the US.
In addition, it’s already been announced that “Parasite” will be added to the Criterion Collection, with a special edition release of the film on Blu-ray to follow shortly. The film also joins Bong’s own “Memories of Murder” in the Collection. Then, of course, you have the recent comments from President Trump, who trashed “Parasite” for winning the Oscar because it’s a foreign film, which added to the high profile of Bong’s movie and put the award-winning film in the middle of an intense (but stupid) debate.
All that being said, the moral of the story is that people want to see “Parasite.” And if you’ve been waiting to see it on a streaming platform, let’s hope you have Hulu. The film will arrive on the streaming service on April 8. (Side note—Hulu has really stepped up its game lately, and with the addition of FX shows next month, the streamer is worth a subscription.)
