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More than 40 years after its release, 1980’s survival drama The Blue Lagoon found itself placed back under the spotlight after the revelations made in Brooke Shields’ documentary Pretty Baby, where the actress reflected on the filmmakers attempting to “sell her sexual awakening” on film despite the fact she was only 14 when production began.
It was only one of several uncomfortable experiences for Shields during her formative years in the industry, but the tainted legacy of Blue Lagoon didn’t stop the 1908 source novel from continuing to be repurposed for the screen in 1981, 1993, and finally in 2012 when The Awakening was released as a Lifetime original movie.
Deviating from the norm by virtue of being set in the modern day, a fresh-faced Brenton Thwaites stars alongside Indiana Evans in the two lead roles, although the producers did at least learn the lessons of the past seeing as the latter was 21 years old when it landed on screens to be greeted about as tepidly as you’d expect from one of the basic cable network’s many, many, many low budgeted exclusives.
Strangely, though, Blue Lagoon: The Awakening has become stranded on Netflix’s worldwide watch-list after being added to the library in multiple markets, with FlixPatrol having named it as a Top 10 hit in several countries around the globe.
As the sixth adaptation of its inspiration and perhaps the most forgettable, it’s not exactly one that sticks long in the memory, but it’s nonetheless curious that it’s been embarking on a resurgence not so long after Shields’ reflected on her questionable experience on the most famous iteration of the story.