Hotel Mumbai has become a global Netflix hit. The 2018 action movie stars Dev Patel as Arjun, a kitchen worker at a hotel who vows to protect the guests when terrorists strike the city. The release, which also stars Armie Hammer, Nazanin Boniadi, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, and Jason Isaacs, was a precursor to Patel’s 2024 action movie Monkey Man, which he directed in addition to playing the lead role. The new release became a theatrical hit, earning $32.4 million worldwide against a $10 million budget that had already been offset when it was acquired by Netflix before being dropped.
Netflix has now calculated their global Top 10 chart for the most-watched English-language movies for the week of April 22 through April 28. Hotel Mumbai has landed at No. 9 on the chart thanks to 2.8 million viewers racking up a total of 5.7 million viewing hours. Despite being more than half a decade old and not being a Netflix original, the movie has charted alongside other streaming hits such as What Jennifer Did and Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver.
Is Dev Patel Our Next Big Action Star?
Patel Was Not Previously Known For Action Movies
The combined success of Hotel Mumbai and Monkey Man in 2024 could be an indication that Patel is on the precipice of becoming a proper action movie star. Previously, the actor has rarely dabbled in action, largely appearing in dramas such as the 2008 Best Picture winner Slumdog Millionaire or 2016’s Lion, for which he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. The only other action movies to his name are the genre-tinged efforts Chappie and The Last Airbender, which came out in 2015 and 2010 respectively.
It does seem likely that the success of the Monkey Man theatrical release is what is driving this streaming success for Hotel Mumbai because the earlier project was a flop, only making $21.1 million worldwide against a budget of $17.3 million. This could mean that general interest in seeing Patel lead an action movie has increased in the past few months. However, it remains to be seen if the star will capitalize on that interest, because his two officially upcoming projects are in entirely different genres.
So far, Patel is set to follow his success with a role opposite Olivia Colman in the offbeat romance Wicker and an appearance in the upcoming horror movie Rabbit Trap. Neither seems to have action elements, meaning that he still needs to land on an action project to follow Hotel Mumbai and his 2024 hit. Should he choose to go in that direction, that follow-up title could be the possible Monkey Man 2, a movie that could launch a John Wick-style franchise and give the star an entirely new career path in major action movies.
Click here to watch Hotel Mumbai on Netflix
Source: Netflix
