Netflix is no stranger to big celebrities, but this year it’s taking on one of cinema’s most iconic characters in the form of Marilyn Monroe, with the movie Blonde.
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We’ve got all the key details about this mysterious project, including when you might be able to watch it, and how to do just that.
Blonde release date
Blonde has been in production (or post-production) for a long time now, with rumours swirling all the time about its contents, how it treats Monroe and what it’s going to be like to watch.
Now, we finally know when it’s coming out – Blonde will premiere on Netflix on 23 September 2022.
Blonde Trailers
The first trailers for the movie are finally here, and you can watch them below, starting with a very short teaser.
A longer trailer debuted at the end of July 2022, and contains a huge amount more to dig into if you’re so inclined, running a bunch of famous moments in Monroe’s life.
It looks like things will get pretty dark, too, with Ana de Armas presenting not just the public lightness but also the private darkness of some parts of Monroe’s life.
How to watch Blonde
The good thing even if Netflix decides to also do a limited run in cinemas, you can bank on being able to stream the movie on its release, right there on Netflix.
All you’ll need is a membership or to share a password with someone who has an account for a day, to sit down and watch it yourself.
Blonde cast
The central figure in Blonde is being played by Ana de Armas, who was so sensational in No Time to Die and Knives Out, and the cast is filled out by some other big names:
Ana de Armas as Marilyn MonroeAdrien Brody as The Playwright (Arthur Miller)Bobby Cannavale as The Ex-Athlete (Joe DiMaggio)Caspar Phillipson as The PresidentSara Paxton as Miss FlynnJulianne Nicholson as Gladys
You can keep a full eye on the cast list as it grows on IMDb.
Blonde story
Blonde tells an explicitly fictionalised tale of Marilyn Monroe’s internal life in the 1950s and 60s, based on a celebrated book by Joyce Carol Oates. It promises to be a salacious, unflinching look at what it was like to be the world’s foremost sex symbol through those years, but with a fantastical slant.
The original book’s writer has already sung the film’s praises having seen a rough cut all the way back in 2020, too:
(just a parenthetical aside–I have seen the rough cut of Andrew Dominick’s adaptation & it is startling, brilliant, very disturbing & [perhaps most surprisingly] an utterly “feminist” interpretation… not sure that any male director has ever achieved anything this.) https://t.co/zUubjH5yqV
— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) August 10, 2020
The film is the brainchild of director and writer Andrew Dominik of Killing Them Softly and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and it’s taken him years to get it made, but Netflix looks to have finally stumped up the cash.
The fact that both Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller are in the cast-list shows that the film is going to go into Monroe’s marriage with each celebrity, while we also know she’ll come to know President Kennedy, just as she did in real life.
There’s also a credit listed for “Young Norma Jeane”, Monroe’s real birth name, so we’re assuming that we’ll get at least some portrayal of Monroe’s early life, as well.