With one exception – the recently released French-language action thriller AKA — There isn’t a single Netflix original among the most-watched movies in the US right now (as of Monday, May 8). Globally, it’s only a slightly different story, with four of the ten most-watched movies on Netflix worldwide last week being Netflix originals (A Tourist Guide to Love, Seven Kings Must Die, Murder mystery 2and Chupa).
Netflix, of course, has always had much more success with its original TV releases, which do a much better job of pulling in viewers (as you’d expect, considering the average Netflix series runs for 10 hours or more, compared to just over 2 hours for a feature film). That said, it’s felt for a while now that the streaming giant, which seems adept at cutting TV franchises off the air, continues to struggle to bring that same Midas touch to its film output.
So many Netflix movies seem to come and go, sinking like a stone almost as soon as they arrive. I did a quick April count — did you know that Netflix released at least 18 new original movies last month?
The vast majority of what its US subscribers watch right now, when it comes to Netflix movies, can best be categorized as “other people’s stuff.” That is, non-Netflix content. At #1 in the US right now, for example, it is A man named Otto — the kind of emotional drama that star Tom Hanks can pull off in his sleep and that didn’t impress critics at all (it has a 69% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes). Audiences, however, absolutely loved the film, giving it a near-perfect 97% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The only Netflix movie on the US Top 10 list today, as noted above, is AKA. The film, currently sitting at a middling number 6, is about a special operations agent who goes undercover in a criminal organization and befriends the boss’s young son.
As someone who doesn’t have a lot of time to invest in every TV show under the sun, I hope this dynamic changes soon — and Netflix gives us more movies that will get people excited and glued to their screens. On that score, check out our post below offering a snapshot of some of Netflix’s most anticipated upcoming movies based on IMDb MovieMeter ratings.
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