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    You Are Getting Very Sleepy

    Netflix and Calm’s ‘Train Dreams’ Partnership: Marketing While You Sleep

    Exclusive: How to market a meditative film about isolation and memory in an age of algorithmic chaos? Meet audiences where they're already seeking stillness.
    By Dana Harris-Bridson
    Dana Harris
    IndieWire editor in chief Dana Harris

    Dana Harris-Bridson

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    Joel Edgerton in 'Train Dreams'
    Joel Edgerton in 'Train Dreams'
    Courtesy Netflix
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    Points for creativity: inspired by its Oscar-aspiring “Train Dreams.” The collaboration, launching today, represents Netflix’s first venture on the Calm platform and a potential blueprint for how specialty films can cut through the noise by targeting audiences when they’re asleep.

    The 20-minute “Sleep Story x Soundscape” hybrid transforms Train Dreams” explores themes of solitude, loss, and resilience — the kind of contemplative territory where Calm’s 100 million users already spend their time.

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    The Calm team worked with the film’s sound designer, Lee Salevan, and composer Bryce Dessner, utilizing the film’s sound stems and score cues overlaid with sections of dialogue from Bentley and Greg Kwedar’s script. 

    The odds are stacked against independent and specialty films capturing audience attention. However, this may represent a new kind of counterprogramming: Rather than shout louder, this collaboration markets while you sleep.

    Calm previously collaborated with superhero franchises like “Venom: The Last Dance” (voiced by Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock and Venom), but this is the first film partnership to create one of its Sleep Stories.

    Calm has also previously created Sleep Stories from public-domain classics like “Pride and Prejudice” and “The Wizard of Oz,” and enlisted talent like Walton Goggins and Lin-Manuel Miranda to narrate original Sleep Stories like “The Yard Sale” and “Adventures in Puerto Rico.”

    The film stars Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, and William H. Macy, with Patton’s narration carrying over to the Calm experience. The distribution strategy extends beyond Calm’s app, with Netflix sharing the soundscape across YouTube, Instagram, and X.

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