Just like Robert Downey Jr.’s Dolittle, Adam Driver suffered some post-franchise blues when his prehistoric action movie 65 dropped…well like a bomb earlier this year. Having come off the success of his appearances as Kylo Ren in the Star Wars sequels, Driver’s presence in the movie should have been enough to pull in a decent crowd, but instead the film became extinct at the box office very quickly. Now however, in a Jurassic Park-style resurrection, the movie has clawed its way to the top of the Netflix movie chart as another surprise flop-turned-hit streaming story.
Despite having a pretty reasonable budget of $45 million, 65 managed to gross just $60.7 million after its release in March and joined the ranks of many movies that have struggled to get people into cinemas in the last two years. While the story of a space-pilot crashing onto a planet of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures sounds like exactly the kind of premise to deliver good results in box office numbers, instead people just didn’t show much interest at all. Now however, it seems that there was interest out there, but those people were just waiting for it to hit a streaming platform.
65’s biggest hurdle on its release came from the less then glowing reviews, which could have certainly contributed to the lackluster gross, but as has been seen many times over since the Covid pandemic, there are some movies that people are just not that bothered about paying to see on the big screen but will certainly check out once it becomes available at home. With the summer being littered with the carcasses of potential box office hits that have failed to meet their potential, even without the arrival of more strikes, Hollywood’s future has ever been less certain than right now.
Are Streaming Movies More Popular Than A Cinema Experience?
Although there is no doubt that the right movie can continue to do big business at the box office, as last year’s Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water, as well as this year’s Super Mario Bros. Movie can testify, for films that have a big budgets the potential for box office failure is becoming more and more certain even now the Covid pandemic has come and gone.
Whether it is down to cost, the fact that there have been many big movies released in a short space of time, or just the fact that people are now back to being too busy to take time out for cinema trips every week, the world of big screen movies is still suffering compared to where it was four years ago. In contrast, streaming premieres are still big business, both for original movies and those arriving a few months after hitting the big screen. The quick turnaround from cinema to streaming could be another reason many choose to skip certain movies, as who can’t wait two to three months to see a film?
Whatever the reasons, 65 is just the latest in a long line of cinema flops to find a second lease of life on streaming, and at some point studios are going to question which it is more beneficial to focus on in future.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
