The horror anthology series Cabinet of Curiosities, directed by Academy Award winner Guillermo del Toro, will premiere on Netflix on the dates that were just revealed. However, in keeping with the streaming service’s new approach to the rollout of its original content, the whole eight-episode series will not premiere all at once, but rather over the course of four days. The premiere of the first two episodes will take place on Friday, October 25, and further episodes will air every day until Tuesday, October 28. Two episodes of Cabinet of Curiosities will debut on each of the four days, with the full series being available on October 28 as part of the Netflix & Chills Halloween promotion.
The streaming service is experimenting with a new distribution approach, including a staggered rollout, which was initially rumoured to be in the works in April 2021.2 According to the original report by Small Screen, Netflix is considering adopting the strategy of competitors Prime Video and Disney+, which have found success by releasing their series in a weekly format following a multi-episode launch, such as Prime Video’s superhero series The Boys, with its most recent fourth season premiering three episodes on the season’s premiere and then having weekly releases for new episodes.
For their new Andor series, Disney+ will follow this same pattern, releasing the first three episodes all at once before switching to a weekly release schedule. Two of Netflix’s reality programmes, The Circle and Too Hot to Handle, have been released weekly since April and June, respectively, signalling that the streaming service is experimenting with the concept of abandoning the binge-style distribution method. As seen with Stranger Things, another of the streaming service’s original series, Season 4 was released in two parts, with the first seven episodes premiering together and the final two episodes coming a little over a month later, as the streaming service is still trying to retain some aspects of its old strategy that audiences have become accustomed to. Besides creating the project, del Toro acts as co-showrunner on the show with Oscar winner J. Miles Dale (The Shape of Water; Sex/Life), and the three of them serve as executive producers alongside Gary Ungar.
Co-executive producer Regina Corrado’s credits include this show. In addition to his other roles, Del Toro hosts this show. Each episode will have a separate cast and director and will tell its own tale; two of the episodes will be written from scratch by del Toro. Director(s) Panos Cosmatos (Mandy), David Prior (The Empty Man), Vincenzo Natali (Splice), Jennifer Kent (The Babadook), Keith Thomas (The Vigil), Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight, Miss Bala), Guillermo Navarro (The Godfather of Harlem; Narcos), and Ana Lily Amirpour (The Women Who Kill) are all attached to the project (A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night).
In a statement released alongside the news of the release date, Del Toro said: Our goal in creating “Cabinet of Curiosities” was to provide a forum for discussing and displaying phenomena that fall outside of the realm of everyday experience. Whether these stories originate in the cosmos, the otherworldly, or the depths of our own imaginations, we have carefully selected and curated a collection of storytellers to bring them to life. These eight stories, perfect for Halloween, offer fascinating glimpses into the hidden cupboard of surprises underneath our everyday lives. The premiere of Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities is timed to coincide with Netflix’s four-day Halloween promotion, Netflix & Chills, which runs from October 25th to the 28th.