True Genius is the latest Netflix crime documentary to beguile, inform and entertain viewers, most of whom immediately binge-watched its examination of Brian Wells’ death back in 2003.
Wells died shortly after robbing a bank, when a homemade explosive device attached to his neck detonated. It later emerged that he been embroiled in a complex plot that involved a scavenger hunt, all of which “Evil Genius” expertly explores.
The 4-part documentary builds upon the success of “Making A Murderer,” “Amanda Knox” and “Strong Island” to confirm Netflix as the definitive place to watch the best of the genre. As you’d expect “True Genius’s” directors Barbara Schroeder and Trey Borzillieiri only had kind words to say about the streaming website.
“It’s doing for journalism what a lot of newspapers aren’t able to do anymore for various reasons,” was Schroeder’s assessment. “They have shifted the paradigm permanently. Just for the creative side and the entertainment side.” This provoked Borzillieri to add, “It’s definitely the next wave of storytelling.”
Schroeder took this opportunity to go into more detail about what makes Netflix so special, even going as far as to call it “a dream come true for filmmakers.”
“I can tell you, I have worked with other distributions and other companies before, and it was quite a moment when we sat down with Netflix and they said, ‘Look, there’s a 120 million potential audience’.”
“As a filmmaker it took my breath away. It is thrilling. Then when we working on this ‘Making A Murderer’ came out, and the way that was told from a journalist perspective, while being entertaining was incredible. Netflix is just a dream come true for filmmakers.”
There’s more of the same to come from Netflix, too, as "The Staircase," which revolves around the death of Kathleen Peterson at the hands of her husband crime author Michael Petersen, will be released later this summer, and a documentary on the disappearance of Madeleine McCann is in development, too.
