Quietly in the background Netflix has always invested a great deal of time in building a solid catalog of documentary films for subscribers. Not much has been written about the great variety of documentaries that is being cultivated on the streaming service but fans of the genre have known for a while that Netflix is the place to go for a wide variety of both modern and classic documentary films.
Now the company is finally getting into the distribution of these films not just acquiring rights from other distributors to make them available for streaming. Netflix has announced the premieres of four new documentary features on the streaming service over the next few months. With this announcement the company is stating that they want filmmakers to make films specifically for Netflix or at least to be willing to consider them as a premiere option for independently crafted films.
The first film to be released by the service is titled Battered Bastards of Baseball about a defunct minor league baseball team. This film will be available to stream July 11th. This title also proves the company isn’t just looking at traditional issue based serious documentary films, which is a good thing.
The next film, set to premiere in August is called Mission Blue and it follows marine biologist Sylvia Earle as she works protected marine sanctuarys. E Team is next and it is a documentary about human rights workers and the final film is titled Print the Legend and it is about 3-D printing.
While Netflix can’t offer the level of media fanfare that a theatrical run or network TV presentation can offer Netflix can offer a much longer prentation window than the more mainstream options.