Netflix’s long-delayed, x-rated Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde is finally coming out soon(ish)
In a series of new interviews, director Andrew Dominik disclosed the release month for his Ana De Armas-led drama and promises "there’s something in it to offend everyone"
Netflix has taken its sweet time with Blonde, director Andrew Dominik’s sexually explicit Marilyn Monroe biopic, which, having first been conceived way back in 2010 with Naomi Watts in the lead role, is now an actual, finished movie starring No Time To Die MVP Ana De Armas that is set to drop later this year.
While the production was a little less than smooth – what with the pandemic-induced delays and Netflix execs reportedly asking Dominik to tone down graphic sex scenes – it seems like the film is finally ready to be digested by the wider public.
In a new set of interviews, Dominik suggested that the film will launch in some form or another in September 2022, most likely with a Venice Film Festival debut (the festival takes place between 31 August – 10 September). “It’s not going to come out ’til September,” Dominik told Vulture. And to Collider: “The idea is it goes to Venice now, so what’s that, September?”
So, all going to plan, there’s a decent chance it’ll make its way onto the streaming service shortly after that. By all accounts, it’s gonna be a must-watch. Dominik is well aware Blonde is likely to prove controversial. “It’s a film that definitely has a morality about it,” he told Vulture. “But it swims in very ambiguous waters because I don’t think it will be as cut-and-dried as people want to see it. There’s something in it to offend everyone.” The film, based on the novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates, is being touted as Netflix’s first-ever “adult-only” film. “I think if I’m given the choice, I’d rather go and see the NC-17 version of the Marilyn Monroe story. Because we know that her life was on the edge, clearly, from the way it ended. Do you want to see the warts-and-all version or do you want to see that sanitised version?”
Oates had high praise for Dominik’s adaptation of her work. “It is startling, brilliant, very disturbing and perhaps most surprisingly an utterly ‘feminist’ interpretation… not sure that any male director has ever achieved anything [like] this.” De Armas’ Knives Out co-star was similarly impressed. “I dropped to the floor. I couldn’t believe it. Ana was completely gone. She was Marilyn.”
Alongside De Armas, Bobby Cannavale will play Monroe’s second husband Joe Dimaggio, while Adrien Brody will play her third husband Arthur Miller. Sounds like a winner to us.
Blonde is set to come out on Netflix in 2022.
