Gorillaz decided not to move forward with plans for a Netflix film after the project continued to stall.
Frontman Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett spoke about why they stepped away from the major deal with the streaming platform, which would have seen the virtual group star in a feature length movie. However, the slow pace of development led them to channel that disappointment into their 2023 album Cracker Island.
Speaking to Zane Lowe on Apple Music, Damon explained: "Cracker Island was a strange creature because most of it was created here in Los Angeles while we were stuck between meetings with Netflix [about the film] ... We kept waiting for something that never came together ... It’s an album about ... It’s a frustrating album because it came from a frustrating period, you know."
Jamie also shared his thoughts: "The film world moves at a very slow pace, it really does. Everything just takes forever. We were developing a script and had reached the second draft of what we thought was a strong concept when Cracker Island sort of turned into the film instead.
"If we had made a film 25 years ago that would have made sense… but making one now? I honestly have zero interest in it. None at all. It doesn’t feel exciting and it doesn’t feel fresh.
"We had this point with Netflix where they basically said ‘You can create whatever you want and we will fund it’, and we thought ‘That sounds great’, and we came up with some really strong concepts.
"But everything was dragging on and the person we were working with ended up leaving, and [Netflix] told us ‘It’s fine, we will replace them’. We just thought ‘That probably means another year of talks before anything actually moves’. So we decided to step away."
Damon later added: "It honestly felt like I was just waiting forever ... [So we ended up making an album while we were stuck waiting] about that feeling of endless waiting. That’s really what the record is about."
Jamie finished by saying: "I really love that album. I think it’s a fantastic record."
