The Ice Road – Picture: Netflix
The Ice Road has landed on Netflix but only in the United States. You may have seen reviews promoting a broad release for The Ice Road but sadly, you probably won’t be catching The Ice Road on Netflix anytime soon.
The new Liam Neeson epic hasn’t exactly scored the best reviews from critics but that often doesn’t matter. The big action flick has been scoring plenty of headlines meaning that it’s in high demand.
But sadly, only those in the United States can stream the movie.
Netflix has gone some way to protecting those outside the US from being exposed to The Ice Road. The trailer from Netflix for example is geo-restricted but even so, almost all coverage of the movie just mentions that it’s a Netflix Original movie.
So what’s going on here? Well, although it’s a Netflix Original, Netflix didn’t produce the movie. Instead, it just acquired the exclusive distribution rights in the United States meaning it can only show the movie there.
If we look back to the original announcement as reported by The Hollywood Reporter, the movie was sold on a per-country basis.
Netflix in the US was the only country to land the movie with Prime Video scoring it in the United Kingdom and France with other countries being sold to local distributors or worse, unsold.
We’d recommend using a service like JustWatch.com to see where it eventually lands in your region but know it may not be available right now.
It’s not the first time this has happened. In fact, there’s a laundry list of movies and series where this often happens. Next month, Gunpowder Milkshake will follow a similar release schedule with it only arriving in the States.
It can and often does work in the other direction too. Earlier this year for example, everywhere except the United States was treated to Tom Hanks’s News of the World which is displayed as a Netflix Original. In that case, Universal held back the movie from Netflix and at the moment, is only available on VOD services although is expected to land on HBO Max eventually.
We hope that explains why you’re not able to watch The Ice Road but if you’re unable to find it where you live, it probably doesn’t help much.