Netflix’s Death Note: Release Date, Trailer, Story Details, and More News

While Netflix has been flexing its ever-expanding muscles with plenty of original high-profile projects, the upcoming Bright may just take things to a new level. After winning a $90 million bidding war to acquire the film last March, the streaming giant stacked it with a bevy of big-names, notably reuniting Will Smith with Suicide Squad director David Ayer.

Here’s everything else you need to know:

Bright Trailer

Here’s the San Diego Comic-Con trailer for Bright:

On an Academy Award night telecast that gave us the surreal occurrence – Best Motion Picture winner mix-up notwithstanding – of the much-derided DC Comics effort Suicide Squad earning the title of Oscar winner (for Makeup and Hairstyling), a teaser clip debuted for the next collaborative effort from that film’s star/director duo in Netflix’s notably expensive original film effort Bright. The brief teaser showcases a film that seems to be a gritty amalgam of Will Smith’s Men in Black films and the classic Alien Nation film and television franchise, managing to pack a punch.

Bright Release Date

Bright will avoid the theaters for its grand unveiling, instead opting to make a Christmas season debut streaming on Netflix when it premieres sometime in December.

Bright Story 

Bright takes place in a version of Earth in which mystical, magical creatures coexist alongside humans, creating a major job alteration for law enforcement. Will Smith plays rough-edged LAPD officer Scott Ward, partnered with an Orc named Nick, played by Joel Edgerton. Scott and Nick work for the department’s “Magic Division,” specializing in crimes involving creatures and extra-dimensional incantations. Indeed, the teaser clip is a cavalcade of genre-mixing, action-packed freakiness in which embattled cops deal with shotgun-wielding orcs, magic swords and what appear to be elves doing… well, let’s just say, generally weird things.

Bright Cast and Crew

The rest of the Bright cast will certainly ring familiar to many, featuring names like Noomi Rapace (Prometheus, the original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Ike Barinholtz (Suicide Squad, The Mindy Project), Edgar Ramirez (Gold, Hands of Stone) and Lucy Fry (Wolf Creek, 11.22.63). Bright, which easily could have been marketed as a big-screen blockbuster, will see director David Ayer (Fury, End of the Watch) directly transition from the divisive Suicide Squad, now working off a script featuring the quirky sensibilities of Max Landis (Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Victor Frankenstein). Considering the scope of this project, we could be looking at a bellwether moment for the distribution model of many would-be blockbuster efforts.

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