This article was published on 12/30 and republished on 1/1.
While I don’t normally write up this kind of article for Netflix’s Top 10 movie list, this caught my eye as I’ve been trying to gauge the overall success of Rebel Moon, the Zack Snyder feature that at least at one point, Netflix hoped would be their big, new, at least Star War-ish IP.
Rebel Moon did not debut immediately at #1, but got there quickly. But now, after about a week, it’s fallen from its top spot. But not to #2, actually to #3. It has been dethroned by none other than Meg 2: The Trench, the Jason Statham giant shark-hunting sequel.
Critically, as you might expect, both Meg movies were rated poorly, but The Meg was at a 47% on Rotten Tomatoes and The Meg 2 was down to a 27%. But that is still higher than Rebel Moon’s 24%, and The Meg 2’s 73% audience score is higher than Rebel Moon’s 44% as well.
But as ever, Netflix really doesn’t care much about critic scores. Half their #1 shows are usually Rotten rated at this point. The question is viewership.
The last data we have from Rebel Moon is its “opening weekend” as it were, where it racked up 23.9 million viewers. But that puts the blockbuster in ninth place for Netflix original movies this year, behind much cheaper, less high profile productions like Jonah Hill romantic comedies or Gal Gadot spy thrillers.
But Rebel Moon is only a quarter of Netflix and Snyder’s overall Rebel Moon plan, which includes Part 2 of the movie in April, and then two, three hour, R-rated cuts at some point after that, most likely. Add all those hours together and maybe you have more of a competitor. But with this kind of start, I’m not sure how many people be tuning in for 2-8 more hours of Rebel Moon.
Falling to #3 puts it behind Super Mario Bros, which was at #2 before and has the kind of staying power you would imagine Mario would have. #4 is Leave the World Behind, the apocalypse thriller which debuted with close to double Rebel Moon’s viewers.
Rebel Moon’s course is pretty much set, despite any of this. The second half of the film and the R-rated cuts are essentially done and they will be released. But I have no doubt that even though unannounced, there were probably plans for spin-off movies or shows. It remains to be seen if anything like that may come to fruition. And there was talk of some big AAA video game as well, under Netflix’s new gaming label, but we’ll see. Not holding my breath.
Update (1/1/24): Checking back in on the list two days later, Rebel Moon has not had some sort of New Year’s-related surge with everyone home to potentially watch it. In fact, it has quickly fallen down even further from the #3 spot, all the way down to #5. I said this before, but if you see drops this fast, positive word of mouth is probably not spreading, and anecdotally, the reaction I’ve seen from those online who did finally get around to it is…not good.
There are, however, two other reasons for it falling down that are pretty good ones. While Meg 2 and Super Mario Bros. are still above it, two other licensed films that Netflix picked up have joined the list, Elvis, the biopic starring Austin Butler, and Joker, all the way back from 2019, now added to Netflix’s catalog, at least for the time being, and ahead of Joker 2 releasing later this year, which will star Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn. Really looking forward to seeing how that plays out even if it seems kind of insane on the surface. So did Joker 1, however.
As for Rebel Moon, it just doesn’t seem to have much staying power past its launch week. It is kind of funny to see both Rebel Moon and Aquaman 2 saying they are the “number one movies in the world” when Rebel Moon means on Netflix and Aquaman 2 means at the box office. I really do think Netflix continuing to do all these streaming-only movies are a mistake when they can do things like post Meg 2: The Trench and it springs past their own blockbusters on the chart. Something isn’t working here.
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