Although Gorillaz allegedly signed contracts with Netflix, the streaming platform is not moving forward with their movie. Two years ago, Gorillaz lead artist Damon Albarn announced they’d have an animation film out soon that would use their branded characters, co-created by Jamie Hewlett.
He told Apple Music at that time,
“I’m at Netflix because we’re making a full-length Gorillaz film. Yeah, we’re having a writing session in Malibu this afternoon. It’s really exciting to do that. We’ve wanted to do it for a very long time. It’s been through so many incarnations…this Gorillaz doing a movie. Honestly.”
Recently, however, Albarn told NUMO during an interview that “it’ll never happen.”
“The streaming platform for which we were making the film has withdrawn,” he said. “They started to panic because they were making too much content and decided to cut back on their movie offerings.”
It’s said that Netflix withdrew because of recent cutbacks in the network’s animation department.
Unfortunately, the Netflix representative working closely with Gorillaz left the company.
“From then on you have lost your guardian angel, and there seems to be a bad smell hanging on you,” he continues. “Hollywood is quite territorial: if a new guy comes along, he must and will have a different opinion, even if he secretly agrees with his predecessor.”
On the brighter side of things, they’ll be releasing their eighth studio album, Cracker Island, on Friday (February 24th). Their first single from the LP, “Silent Running (featuring Adeleye Omotayo),” dropped earlier this month.
