Gorillaz reveal why they “pulled out” of making animated Netflix movie
Gorillaz duo Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett have explained the reason why their planned movie failed to materialise at Netflix.
In 2020, Albarn first revealed that an agreement was in place with the streaming giant to create the animated band’s debut full-length movie.
Then, a year later, Albarn continued to talk up the project, stating that Gorillaz had chosen to partner with Netflix because “they just seem like they’re a good creative team”.
After an extended period of radio silence, Albarn confirmed the film would no longer be going ahead with Netflix in 2023.
Now, in a new interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music, Hewlett explained why the idea of a movie is no longer appealing, admitting, “If we’d done a movie 25 years ago, fine but the idea of doing a movie now it just doesn’t have no interest in it whatsoever. No interest.”
He then touched upon the previous discussions with Netflix, sharing, “It’s like we had this moment with Netflix where we were literally told you can do whatever you want and we’re going to give you as much money and we’re like, okay great and we had some brilliant ideas.”
However, a combination of factors led to it never materialising, with Hewlett sharing that “it was just moving so slow” and “the guy we were working with just left”.
Hewlett added, “They said don’t worry we’ll find someone else and it’s like okay there’s going to be another year of conversations before this starts again. So we pulled out.”
Albarn also interjected to add, “I just felt like I was hanging around for what seemed an eternity,” prompting Hewlett to say, “So we made an album while we were waiting basically.”
Following the release of their new album, The Mountain, in February, Gorillaz are currently on a UK and Ireland arena tour, which will see them perform at The SSE Arena in Belfast tonight (March 31st) before moving on to Dublin later this week.
In addition to headline appearances at numerous European festivals, including Primavera and Rock Werchter, they will also perform the biggest headline show of their career at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on June 20th.
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