Not all film festivals go perfectly. Sometimes, a film festival premiere is more of a test screening than a huge, earth-shattering debut. And that was exactly the case with Olivier Assayas’ recent film “Wasp Network,” when it premiered at last year’s Venice Film Festival. The film didn’t have the most welcome reception upon its debut, giving the filmmaker the motivation to go back and edit it to how he wanted. After the new cut debuted to slightly warmer reviews at last year’s New York Film Festival, the thriller is finally ready for its debut for the global audience.
According to Variety, “Wasp Network” is skipping a theatrical release and has instead been picked up by Netflix for a global streaming debut next month. The period drama follows the incredible true story of the Cuban 5, a group of intelligence officers that were arrested for espionage in the ‘90s. And while the film is set to debut in most of the world in June, unfortunately, China, Eastern Europe, Greece, Portugal, the Middle East, and France won’t have access to the new feature.
As mentioned, “Wasp Network” is written and directed by Assayas, who is probably best known for features such as “Irma Vep” (which is getting a new TV adaptation), “Personal Shopper,” “Clouds of Sils Maria,” and the recent “Non-Fiction,” as well as the TV miniseries, “Carlos.” The new film stars Edgar Ramirez and Penelope Cruz.
In our review of the film out of Venice, we weren’t that impressed and said, “The emotional power provided by Ramirez and Cruz is worth mentioning, as a family continually torn apart by the political upheaval of their lives. But this power is stunted, too, by the messiness of Assayas’ delivery, and his refusal to clean up the tangled narrative threads that his film leaves hanging.”
“Wasp Network” will debut on Netflix on June 19.
