Hulu is giving us a brand-new reason to re-watch Palm Springs. This week, the streaming service released a commentary cut for which Hulu is calling the first of its kind in streaming. The commentary track features stars Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti, as well as director Max Barbakow and screenwriter Andy Siara (with whom Samberg is already working on a new, untitled project).
Palm Springs hit during as the doldrums of COVID-19 isolation, and it felt like a perfect fit for the huge shifts we were coming to grips with during that time. The film was an early favorite for 2020 and stood up through the year’s releases to come and made it into our best-of lists for 2020.
“As far as I know, we’re the first,” Samberg said in an interview with Variety. “We realized that Palm Springs will always be on Hulu, which is great, but there are elements of the DVD experience that just don’t exist anymore. They [Hulu] were very amenable in talking about the ways to get some fun stuff in there.”
Entertainment extras began to accompany movies as DVDs rose in popularity, with discs including everything from one or more commentary tracks to deleted scenes, galleries, and more. The advent of streaming, has almost entirely killed that off, though. Some services have experimented with extras, like Netflix’s Always Be My Maybe, which has its own commentary podcast that you can play alongside the film. Purchased movies, like those available through the iTunes store or those digital codes you can input into the MoviesAnywhere app also offer all the extras typically available on those discs. For the vast majority of the content on streaming services, though, bonus content is basically non-existent.
Palm Springs hit Hulu in July 2020 after selling for $17,500,000.69 at the Sundance Film Festival the year previous. The film stars Andy Samberg as Nyles, a wedding guest stuck in a Groundhog Day-style timeloop. He accidentally pulls in Sarah (Cristin Milioti) and the two explore the repeating day while also trying to escape.
To check out the commentary, head over to Hulu, look up Palm Springs, and go to the Extras tab.
