Mel Gibson is proving that he can still attract the attention of movie audiences, even when the film he’s starring in is an obscure release from a couple of years ago.
According to Netflix’s
NFLX
On The Line was also No. 2 on Netflix’s U.S. Top 10 Movies chart behind Ben Affleck’s 2016 crime drama The Accountant. On the Line debuted at No. 7 on the U.S. chart for the week of March 18-24.
What makes the performance of Gibson’s movie especially extraordinary is that On the Line was never released in the U.S. theaters when it debuted in 2022 and only played on screens in a handful of countries overseas. Fortunes changed last week for Gibson’s thriller, though, when the film began trending on Netflix.
On the Line stars Gibson as Elvis Cooney, a veteran shock jock working overnights in Los Angeles who is being urged by management to change his old ways. Listenership spikes, though, when a caller claiming to be a former employee of the station threatens to kill Elvis’ family unless the DJ cooperates with the demented caller’s demands — all while remaining on the air.
While On the Line is attracting a huge amount of attention on Netflix, it didn’t impress the critics who reviewed it. The film scored a dismal 20 percent “rotten” rating from 25 critics on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, while more than 250 voters combined votes to date have the film sitting at a 30 percent positive audience score.
Gibson Isn’t The Only Comeback Kid On The Netflix Movie Chart
Mel Gibson — whose last big theatrical success came in 2016 as the director of the multiple Oscar nominee Hacksaw Ridge — isn’t the only notable screen performer enjoying a career resurgence via Netflix’s Top 10 Movies Chart.
For the week of March 18-24, former child star Lindsay Lohan’s new film Irish Wish topped the Netflix Top 10 Movies chart with 25.5 million views, which translated to 40 million hours viewed. Irish Wish is Lohan’s first Netflix original movie since she starred in the romantic comedy Falling for Christmas for the streamer in November 2022.
Lohan recently made a cameo appearance in the 2024 remake of Mean Girls. The new Mean Girls movie is a musical version of the 2004 original, which was previously reconfigured for Broadway audiences in 2018.
Lohan’s momentum appears to be continuing as her former Freaky Friday movie co-star Jamie Lee Curtis posted a picture of herself and the actress on Instagram suggesting that the pair was close to reuniting for Freaky Friday 2. Lohan’s and Curtis’ original Freaky Friday movie — which is a remake of the 1976 daughter-mother body-switching comedy starring Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris — was released in 2003.
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