George Clooney-directed film The Midnight Sky set to become one of Netflix’s most-watched films
George Clooney is shaping up to end 2020 with a hit.
On Thursday, Deadline reported that his film The Midnight Sky, which the Oscar-winner directed and starred in, is slated to become one of Netflix’s most-watched overall films.
The streaming service announced that the picture had been viewed by a projected 72 million households during its first four weeks of release.
Finishing strong: George Clooney’s film The Midnight Sky is slated to become one of Netflix’s overall most-watched titles
The film was also Netflix’s biggest theatrical release of the year, as it played on hundreds of screens in 16 different countries worldwide.
In terms of streaming, the media company confirmed that The Midnight Sky attained the top spot for content in 77 countries and has reached the top ten list in 93 countries overall.
The science fiction picture was based off of the 2016 novel of the same name, written by novelist Lily Brooks-Dalton.
The plot follows a research scientist who takes a young girl on a trip through the Arctic Circle in order to warn a potentially returning spaceship not to return to Earth, which has undergone a cataclysmic event.
Dual roles: Clooney served as both the leading actor and director of the film; he is seen on set with David Oyelowo and Tiffany Boone in 2019
In addition to Clooney, the picture also stars Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo and Demian Bichir in supporting roles.
Development on the project was announced in June of 2019 and filming began in October of that year, with production wrapping the following February.
Due to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, The Midnight Sky was given a limited theatrical release beginning on December 11th.
The movie’s wide release on Netflix occurred a few weeks afterwards on December 23rd.
In an interview with Variety, Clooney spoke about the difficulties of directing a motion picture in a particularly harsh environment; the film was shot in England and Iceland, often in below-zero temperatures.
Big and small screens: The Midnight Sky was given separate theatrical and home releases
Heavy duty work: Clooney spoke to Variety about filming in harsh environments, stating that ‘you have to be really, really prepared’; he is pictured in 2018
‘First and foremost, you have to be really, really prepared… We get in a scene, and all of a sudden, it’s too sunny or too nice. Or then we get there, and it wasn’t nice enough. I’ve been doing it long enough now that it’s not as complicated as it feels,’ he stated.
The 59-year-old also noted that he wanted the film to feel timely and to cover a wide range of subjects under the guise of a sci-fi story.
He said: ‘I wanted it to deal with things we’re all dealing with today: the denying of science, playing out anger, hatred, and divisions in between the people of the United States, but also divisions that play out in other countries.’
Clooney also spoke about how his status as a parents influenced both the writing of the screenplay and his performance in multiple different scenes.
‘There’s a part of this film that is about isolation and our ability to communicate, and our inability to be near the people we love. And that is a very specific example of taking away and losing something you care deeply about,’ the actor opined.
Timely themes: The actor and director stated that the film was partially about ‘isolation and our ability to communicate’