Earlier this week, Amazon and Netflix started a bidding war over the rights to “Crime 101,” an adaptation of a Don Winslow novella with Chris Hemsworth and Pedro Pascal attached to star. No surprise there, as Pascal is one of the buzziest actors in the industry right now, and Hemsworth’s projects continue to succeed. According to Puck, Amazon has won the “Crime 101” sweepstakes, with a $90 million deal; not quite the projected $100 million from earlier this week, but still steep. What had Amazon come out on top? New film chief Courtenay Valenti promised a theatrical release for the film, while Netflix wanted script revisions.
The Amazon victory for the project proves intriguing for several reasons. For one, it sees Netflix let a Hemsworth project go after having three recent ones in the “Extraction” movies and “Spiderhead.” And “Extraction 2” got a lot of positive buzz earlier this year, so all the more surprising the streaming giant let this one slip through their fingers. But the “Crime 101” bidding war also raises eyebrows because it’s a film deal completed in the midst of the WGA & SAG-AFTRA guild strikes. Granted, the deal is strictly for rights for CAA and Working Title, and union strike rules do not cover it. And Hemsworth and Pascal have been attached to the project since before the strike started.
But it’s still business being done when the industry is more or less at a halt. Does it look good that Amazon shelled out this kind of money for a high-profile project that may never see the light of day? And Puck reports that one source says that Hemsworth may ultimately end up not doing the movie at all. Whatever the case, the deal flies in the face of what’s happening on the ground of the filmmaking industry at the moment, and that can’t have strikers confident that giants like Amazon and Netflix feel any urgency about bringing the strikes to a close.
As for “Crime 101,” Winslow’s 2021 novella follows a detective convinced that one man is behind a string of brilliant robberies, while other law enforcement believes it’s the work of a cartel—no word on who Pascal or Hemsworth will play yet. Winslow will adapt his book for the big screen, with “American Animals” director Bart Layton helming the film.
So Amazon won the rights to a big Chris Hemsworth/Pedro Pascal vehicle, essentially poaching Hemsworth from Netflix for $90 million. Is this a major coup, or does it indicate that both companies aren’t taking the ongoing guild strikes that seriously? Debate away on that one, movie fans.
