Bright: Trailer, Release Date, Story for Netflix Movie

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

The third and presumably final Bright trailer sheds some light on the film’s MacGuffin, a magic wand, which has come into the possession of a dangerous elven femme fatale, named Tikka (Lucy Fry). We see more of the film’s fantastical action sequences and the visual of Will Smith in the hood smashing a fairy with broomstick is a memorable one to say the least.

The second full-length Bright trailer showcases the buddy cop dynamic between Will Smith’s Daryl Ward and Joel Edgerton’s Orc cop Nick Jakoby is the spotlight, showing their hilariously awkward interactions, even as bullets whiz over their heads. We see how their forced partnership evolves into a sort-of friendship as they are thrown deeper into a dangerously pervasive case involving a powerful wish-granting magic wand. Indeed, while some of the great partnerships of cinematic history experience iconic blaze-of-glory endings, à la Butch and Sundance, Ward proves the state of their partnership during a harrowing strip club shootout by accepting the idea that they’re going to “titty bar gunfight die.”

If the previous clips didn’t make clear the immense extent of the fantasy/urban mashup world that Bright has created, then this trailer certainly hits it out of the park. As the trailer proves, the film, which serves as an immediate reunion for Suicide Squad director David Ayer and star Will Smith, is clearly a big screen blockbuster-level feature offering, making it all the more surreal that it’s headed to a device near you on Netflix on December 22.

This featurette for Bright, focuses on the film’s central characters and LAPD partners in human Daryl Ward (Will Smith) and uniformed Orc officer Nick Jakoby (Joel Edgerton). While the video mainly focuses on the bountiful buddy cop dynamic, it also delves into the plot of the film, revealing more about what the main duo will face.

With the film set in a version of contemporary Los Angeles in which magic exists and cities are manifested by mythical beings such as Orcs and Elves, Daryl and Nick are cops teamed up through the LAPD’s “Magic Division.” However, the featurette reveals the film’s magical MacGuffin, a magic wand that grants its possessor any desired wish. Consequently, after stumbling upon the wand, Daryl and Nick not only become the target of dangerously evil people, but their police colleagues, who, at perilous costs, will do anything to use this coveted, sum-of-all-fears-level, trinket for selfish reasons.

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 arrive on Netflix in time for Christmas, ready to stream on December 22.

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.