J. A. Bayona Reveals Why He Was Surprised That Audiences Flocked To ‘Society Of The Snow’ — MIPCOM

J.A. Bayona’s Society of the Snow is one of Netflix‘s most-watched movies of this year so far yet the director revealed today it was mainly intended for an older audience.

Speaking at MIPCOM, the Oscar-nominee said his creative team were “surprised” when the movie about the Uruguayan rugby team’s survival experience after their plan crashed in the Andes proved to be a “phenomenon” with younger audiences.

“Society of the Snow was meant to be for a more mature audience,” said Bayona. “When I look back it makes sense because it had young actors going through a difficult situation and the younger audience felt related to these characters. But it was never intended to be a film for young people and it became one.”

Society of the Snow, which launched in late 2023, was third in Netflix’s most-watched movies of the first half of this year, and top of the non-English-language league with more than 100 million views. The movie starring Enzo Vogrincic, Matías Recalt and Agustín Pardella was Oscar-nominated for Best International Feature Film, eventually losing out to Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest.

“I don’t separate the language of TV and cinema”

Bayona, whose past movies include Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and A Monster Calls, has also directed TV of late including two eps of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

With the barriers between TV and film directing constantly up for debate, Bayona said he follows the same process as movie-making when helming shows for the small screen, echoing similar remarks made recently by Alfonso Cuarón.

“I don’t separate the language of TV and cinema because for me there is only one way of telling a story right,” said Bayona. “That is my goal. To figure out how actors should move in front of a camera and where it should be placed.”

Bayona was speaking as Spain was awarded the Country of Honour award at the Cannes confab.

He said Spain lacks the “resources” of Hollywood but has “passion and very talented people.” Bayona cited how he used Spaniards rather than Americans behind the camera when shooting Jurassic World and flagged his work on 2012 movie The Impossible about the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, when the team only had £2M ($2.6M) for VFX and spent a year preparing for the crucial scene that used real water as opposed to CGI in order to save money.

Up next, Bayona is producing a movie titled A Ghost in the Battle directed by Agustín Díaz Yanes.

He was speaking at MIPCOM right after Cote De Pablo & Michael Weatherly teased a clip from NCIS: Tony & Ziva.