The Michael Fassbender flop Assassin’s Creed has found a new life on Netflix. The movie, which is adapted from the hugely popular video game franchise of the same name, premiered in 2016 and stars Fassbender as Callum Lynch, a death row inmate who discovers that he is a descendant of the assassin Aguilar and is given the ability to relive his memories. The movie, which cost $250 million before factoring in marketing, only made $240.7 million at the worldwide box office.
The film was simply one more in a string of poorly-received live-action video game adaptations, showing yet again that even the most popular game can be a struggle to bring to the big screen. While there are some successes, like the long-running Resident Evil franchise, a large number of live-action video game films flop. Around the same time as Assassin’s Creed, 2018’s Tomb Raider, 2010’s Prince Of Persia: The Sands of Time, and 2016’s Warcraft all failed to meet expectations for such big name films. Despite this, Assassin’s Creed has found new life on Netflix.
Why Assassin’s Creed 2 Never Happened
Assassin’s Creed 2 was in the works following the first movie, and a Cold War setting was even being considered, but the sequel never materialized.
Assassin’s Creed Became A Summer Netflix Hit
Per Netflix, the Assassin’s Creed movie has joined the Top 10 titles on their global English-language movie chart in June 2023. Even though it isn’t streaming in the United States, it has hit the Top 10 in 41 different territories and amassed 5,400,000 viewing hours (as of June 2023), placing it at No. 5 on the chart. It landed even higher than the Jennifer Lopez action movie The Mother, which launched in May.
Netflix Top 10 Most Popular Films (As Of Jan 2024) | Hours Viewed |
|---|---|
Red Notice | 454,200,000 |
Don’t Look Up | 408,600,000 |
The Adam Project | 281,000,000 |
Bird Box | 325,300,000 |
The Gray Man | 299,500,000 |
We Can Be Heroes | 231,200,000 |
The Mother | 265,900,000 |
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery | 320,300,000 |
Extraction | 266,900,000 |
Extraction 2 | 278,700,000 |
Since June, it has dropped off the Netflix Top 10 again, but this sudden spike in popularity is an interesting one. When the movie was released in theaters, it was panned, and still has a shocking 18% on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics lambasting the plot and overall structure of the movie. Despite this, it looks like it may have found popularity with streaming audiences, giving it the potential to become a cult hit. This is also not the first time that it has had a moment on Netflix. In 2021, it also reached the Top 10 in many countries, including Hong Kong, Malaysia, Qatar, Oman, Singapore, and Turkey.
Netflix Has Proven Their Power To Create Hits From Older Movies
Netflix has recently been fighting to maintain their reputation as the top streaming platform. After losing subscribers for the first quarter in many years in 2022, they have radically reshifted their structure. Netflix cracked down on password sharing and introduced an ad-supported tier. However, results like the Assassin’s Creed viewership numbers show they still have the power to shape what people are watching.
In fact, Assassin’s Creed isn’t the first Fassbender flop to do well on the streaming service. 2017’s The Snowman recently took No. 1 on the movie chart despite barely scraping together its production budget during its original run. The fact that it was new to Netflix, however, overcame its past box office history as well as its dismal reputation and 6 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes.
It’s possible that Assassin’s Creed could rise even further up the chart if The Snowman‘s performance is any indication. It could also get a huge boost if its availability is more directly tied to Netflix’s Assassin’s Creed series. The upcoming project is likely the reason the movie joined the platform in the first place, so if big news from that project drops soon, it could become an even bigger online smash.
Assassin’s Creed
- Release Date
- December 21, 2016
- Director
- Justin Kurzel
- Cast
- Michael Fassbender , Marion Cotillard , Jeremy Irons
- Runtime
- 1h 55m
