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Netflix is set to acquire Cannes competition title La Bola Negra, the Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close drama that drew a 20-minute ovation at its premiere.
Netflix has emerged as the buyer for La Bola Negra, the Spanish-language Cannes competition title that drew the festival’s longest standing ovation this year. The deal is in the $4 to $5 million range, sources familiar with the negotiation said.
If the agreement closes, it will set a new domestic-acquisition high for a non-English-language film and slot the picture into Netflix’s late-2026 awards lane. The streamer is positioning it as a crossover play in the vein of last year’s Emilia Pérez.
The Hollywood Reporter reported Netflix’s lead position late Friday, with Spanish producers Movistar Plus telling the outlet negotiations were still active. Other domestic bidders included A24, Neon and MUBI.
The film, directed and written by Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo, the Spanish creative duo known as Los Javis, premiered Thursday evening on the Croisette. The 20-minute ovation that followed sits within striking distance of the festival’s modern record, the 22 minutes that greeted Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth in 2006.
La Bola Negra is the directing duo’s first feature since 2017’s Holy Camp! and their first since the Movistar Plus+ series La Mesías in 2023. It tells the interconnected stories of three men across three eras, 1932, 1937 and 2017, tied together by one of Federico García Lorca‘s last unfinished works.
The cast, beyond Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close, includes Spanish musician Guitarricadelafuente and Miguel Bernardeau. Deadline’s breakdown of the sales process and the multi-week theatrical clause built into the U.S. deal notes Goodfellas and CAA Media Finance brokered the negotiation.
The terms are unusual for a Netflix acquisition. The streamer has committed to a theatrical window measured in weeks rather than the symbolic one-week runs it has used for awards-season releases in the past. That commitment is what reportedly closed the deal.
Critical reception out of Cannes was effusive. The Wrap’s reporting on the bidding war captured early review reactions, including its own Zachary Lee calling it a film that feels both old and new.
The Hollywood Reporter’s Richard Lawson framed the picture as a major event from a new wave of filmmakers, a consideration of so much lost gay history executed with thrilling technical bravado.
The project’s producers are Suma Content Films, the Los Javis production banner, along with Movistar Plus+. Pedro Almodóvar‘s El Deseo co-produced, with Le Pacte attached on the French side. The film was shot for 12 weeks across Spain on 35mm.
Elastica Films opens the picture theatrically in Spain on October 2. Le Pacte handles France.
A U.S. theatrical date will be announced once the Netflix deal officially closes. Cannes wraps this weekend.
