Netflix has greenlit a trilogy that will continue the sexual escapades of Massimo and his lover Laura.
The controversial 2020 movie '365 Days' is being turned into a trilogy, with two sequels on the way.
The original cast of Michele Morrone and Anna-Maria Sieklucka will return to reprise their roles as Massimo and Laura, while Magdalena Lamparska as Olga will also be back on board.
The somewhat sadistic plot of the first movie follows a woman who falls for a man who then imprisons her, saying that she will fall in love with him within a year. It's basically an amped-up '50 Shades of Grey' meets a case of Stockholm Syndrome.
Netflix bringing the title back for two more instalments is quite eyebrow-raising, considering how much controversy the first movie created (side note - the movie also has a 0% Rotten Tomatoes score from critics, and 29% from viewers).
According to Deadline, the second movie in the series will see: "Laura and Massimo are reunited, but their new beginning is complicated by Massimo’s family ties and a mysterious man who enters Laura’s life to win her heart and trust at any cost."
Following its release last year, many felt that the movie romanticised Stockholm Syndrome and sexual assault. Singer Duffy, a survivor of an abhorrent sexual experience in which she was drugged and raped, petitioned for the movie to be taken down from Netflix.
At the time, she wrote an open letter to Reed Hastings, the Chief Executive Officer at Netflix, saying: "'365 Days' glamorizes the brutal reality of sex trafficking, kidnapping and rape. This should not be anyone’s idea of entertainment, nor should it be described as such, or be commercialized in this manner."
A petition to remove the movie from Netflix gathered 95,000 signatures. However, due to the movie being given such a large amount of media coverage, it was listed in the Top 10 titles on the streaming platform in more than 90 countries, including here in Ireland.
The next two '365 Days' sequels will be made in-house at Netflix, meaning that there will be more of a cautious approach with what themes are explored in the next two movies. The movies are based on Polish author Blanka Lipinska's erotic trilogy.
