The very deep pockets at Netflix have reportedly locked in a sweet three-project (THREE, 3! 3! 3!) deal with Beyoncé, meaning Homecoming – the documentary about the queen’s history-making Coachella set – is just the beginning.
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Sources tell Variety that Beyoncé’s deal with Netflix is worth a cool USD $60 million. That’s about 83 million in Aussie buckeroos. Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé apparently cost the streaming giant around USD $20 mill alone. Earlier this week, Vulture reported that HBO had first been in talks with Bey to air the documentary. But, according to industry sources, Netflix swooped in with an eye-watering amount of money that HBO simply couldn’t match. Ah well, they have Game of Thrones.
With the arrival of the Netflix doco came the surprise release of a 40-track live album of Bey’s entire Coachella set PLUS the bonus song ‘Before I Let Go’, a cover of the 1981 single by Maze. Homecoming: The Live Album also features the bonus track ‘I Been On’.
If you’ve yet to watch Homecoming, the doco is two hours and 17 minutes of Bey’s spectacular Coachella set, in which she became the first black woman to headline the festival. The feature also gives viewers an in-depth and intimate look at behind-the-scenes. The artist was originally supposed to perform at Coachella in 2017 but pulled out because she was pregnant with twins Sir and Rumi. In the doco, Bey opened up about health complications with the twins’ birth and how she prepared for the festival as a new mum.
“I had an extremely difficult pregnancy. I had high blood pressure. I developed toxemia, preeclampsia,” she said. “In the womb, one of my babies’ hearts paused a few times so I had to get an emergency C-section.”
When she returned to work, Bey said there were “so many muscle spams” in the beginning and “just internally, my body was not connected. My mind was not there. My mind wanted to be with my children. What people don’t see is the sacrifice.”
Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé is available to stream now on Netflix.
