After A long Wait Netflix Finally Gives Fans What They Want, But There Is An Annoying Catch
Netflix has released a director's commentary for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, but in a podcast you have to listen to on a different device while watching the film on Netflix.
The good news is that if you like director’s commentary and you enjoyed last year’s Netflix original Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, the commentary for the sequel was released today. The bad news is that the streamer’s delivery system for the commentary is so awkward that unless your doctor recently told you “if you don’t find out eactly what Rian Johnson had to say about Jeremy Renner‘s hot sauce, that rash isn’t going anywhere,” neither you nor anyone else will likely bother. WhatsOnNetflix says to experience the special feature you have to play the movie on one device and simultaneously play a long-dormant podcast on a completely separate device.
The Netflix-themed site says that the Glass Onion commentary has been delivered not on the Netflix streaming platform itself, but via the podcast Watching With… — formerly an interview podcast that had its last episode in May 2020. Not only do you have to play the podcast and the movie on separate devices, but apparently the film’s audio is not on the podcast. So in order to make sense of it, you have to time it perfectly like a stoner desperately trying to prove that Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon was recorded to match up perfectly with 1939’s The Wizard of Oz (Spoiler Warning: It wasn’t).
Along with the obvious annoyances of needing to sync up the audio as well as managing the two devices separately, we would imagine more difficulties would arise if/when you pause the movie for a break.
There are clearly some technical barriers digital streamers releasing director’s commentary in such a way that viewers could enjoy it similarly to home releases. WhatsOnNetflix points out that Disney+ is one of the few streamers to implement a workaround — by posting a completely separate version of the film with the director’s words.
One good thing about this news is that it would seem to lend credence to the rumor that Netflix is planning a physical home release for Glass Onion; something it’s done only for eight other Netflix originals thus far. After all, why bother recording director’s commentary unless the streamer is at the very least considering a physical release?
Netflix has a lot of incentive to get as much as they can out of Glass Onion considering how big of a success the sequel has proven to be. Not only has the whodunnit become Netflix’s fourth most watched film ever, but last month the sequel to Knives Out made the amazing record of being the third most watched film across every streaming service the week of January 19th.
The fact that Netflix has seen so much success with Glass Onion could help writer/director Rian Johnson win what so far has been an uphill battle. Johnson has said on a number of occasions he wasn’t a fan of referencing Knives Out in Glass Onion‘s subtitle, preferring “A Benoit Blanc Mystery.” Considering the second film’s popularity, Johnson just might have the ammo he needs to make the change.
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