Netflix’s ‘Midnight Sky’ Will Make Ironic George Clooney Double Feature With Disney’s ‘Tomorrowland’

That Netflix’s
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newest would-be “event movie” this Christmas is a post-apocalyptic adventure story shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. As you may recall, there was a period when Netflix was absolutely flooding its library with post-apocalyptic sci-fi flicks. This includes, offhand, acquisitions like Extinction, The Silence, How It Ends and Cargo along with Netflix originals like Bird Box. It became so common that I half-jokingly argued that the reason Netflix turned down Sony’s offer to sell off Holmes and Watson in late 2018 was because the movie wasn’t a dystopian passion play.

The Midnight Sky, adapted by Mark Smith from Lily Brooks-Dalton’s Good Morning, Midnight and directed by George Clooney, stars Felicity Jones, Demian Bichar, Kyle Chandler and David Oyelowo, It not only represents an algorithm-friendly feature, it may also make an ironic double bill with Tomorrowland. Brad Bird’s big-budget original, penned by Bird and Damon Lindelof and starring Britt Robertson and Raffey Cassidy, implicitly argued that post-apocalyptic entertainment like The Road, The Walking Dead and Children of Men was responsible for society’s unwillingness to rise up to the challenges of fixing a world on the break of catastrophe.

I’d blame institutional racism, trickle-down economics, the military industrial complex and 40 years of “the government shouldn’t help you” propaganda, but I digress. Tomorrowland was seen as an auteristic big swing with mind-blowing (unspoiled-by-trailers) ideas and jaw-dropping spectacle that would hopefully succeed alongside Avengers: Age of Ultron, Jurassic World, Inside Out and Minions. Alas, mixed reviews revealed that the movie A) wasn’t all that good or kid-friendly, B) tripped over itself in the generic final act and C) had very few unspoiled surprises. Tomorrowland was “just a movie,” and it earned $209 million worldwide on a $190 million budget.

The Midnight Sky is about a scientist trying to warn astronauts not to return to a recently-devastated Earth. It looks like the kind of post-apocalyptic/end-of-the-world entertainment that Tomorrowland was rallying against. That’s not a criticism of Clooney, as we shouldn’t expect actors and filmmakers to explicitly endorse every character they play and/or every movie they make. But it does amuse me, even as I’m sure the run up to its December 23 Netflix debut (with a preceding limited theatrical release) will be filled with platitudes about how it’s really a movie about home and the human spirit.

The Midnight Sky is being positioned as Netflix’s year-end fantasy spectacular, a role previously filled by David Ayer and Will Smith’s Bright in 2017, Susanne Brier and Sandra Bullock’s Bird Box in 2018 and Michael Bay and Ryan Reynolds’ 6 Underground in 2019. There may not be a corresponding theatrical year-end event movie (unless Wonder Woman 1984 still opens at Christmas), so The Midnight Sky may have an advantage compared to its predecessors. It’ll be competing with Pixar’s Soul (debuting on Disney
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+ on December 25) and Netflix’s own Oscar-friendly flicks like Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (December 18).

With Hollywood essentially writing off 2020 as a lost cause and even most of the big Oscar contenders (Da 5 Bloods, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Mank, Hillbilly Elegy, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, etc.) originating as Netflix flicks, we may see a scenario where Netflix’s biggest competition is with itself. That’s a dystopian/post-apocalyptic scenario. Tomorrowland, which has by default aged well as a “they don’t make movies like this anymore” Disney biggie, is available to rent for $3 or $4. Here’s hoping The Midnight Sky is closer in quality to Good Night and Good Luck than Suburbicon.