One of Netflix’s biggest releases this week is the Jason Momoa starrer Slumberland‘. The movie, despite getting good responses from the viewers, seems to be a ‘miss’ for the streamer. Its debut weekend numbers are grossly underwhelming, considering the investment and the expected figures.
When you invest a mammoth budget of $150M on a direct-to-release film, the least you would expect is good debut weekend views. While films like ‘Red NOtice’, ‘The Gray Man’, and ‘6 Underground’ were in no way critics’ favorites, the films all received gigantic weekend numbers, reflecting the general audience was loving the film. However, that was not the case for Netflix this time with ‘Slumberland’, its big outing for Thanksgiving. It reportedly received only 16.7 million CVEs in 3 days, unable to even get into the top 25 best weekend debuts on Netflix. For comparison, the relative numbers of the streamer’s other big outings as per reports are:
Red Notice- 76.3
Adam Project- 52.3
Don’t Look Up- 48.3
The Unforgivable- 45.2
The Gray Man- 41.2
While it is to be understood that Jason Momoa doesn’t have the star power of Ryan Gosling, Leonardo Dicaprio, or Sandra Bullock, such low figures were not expected, to say the least. To Make things worse, the movie’s Rotten Tomatoes debut was also nothing to brag about either, with a mild 37% from 38 reviews. One of the prevailing critical opinions was that the movie prioritized its visual effects side over the storytelling, leading to the film being referred to by some as a senseless spectacle. So does that mean that the movie is to be dismissed at first glance?
No.
The family audience are loving the movie, which is some sort of a barometer of success considering the movie was made for that audience. With the love for the movie growing with each passing day, it seems the visual spectacle directed by Francis Lawrence still has the potential to rise higher.
However, it is not just ‘Slumberland’ that had a lukewarm debut. The much-anticipated mystery thriller series 1899 and even the latest season of ‘Elite’ have reported less than expected views. Forget big international projects, even the Indian film ‘Monica, O My Darling’, despite being loved by audiences and critics alike, has lost steam after just a few days.
Well, it seems Netflix is having one of those low phases this week. With no major releases this week besides ‘Chello Show’ and ‘Khakee: The Bihar Chapter’, it doesn’t look like Netflix has much to offer for the remainder of the week.
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