There’s no way of predicting which legacy movies will end up making an unexpected splash on Netflix, nor is there any accounting for taste either it would seem, with 2008’s box office bonanza What Happens in Vegas inexplicably winding up as one of the most popular titles on the entire platform.
Per FlixPatrol, the rom-com starring Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz has debuted on the Top 10 in no less than 56 countries around the world since being added to the content library, which puts it fourth on the worldwide watch-list behind only Chris Hemsworth’s two Extraction outings and heart-wrenching documentary Take Care of Maya.
To say it’s come out of the blue is an understatement, although perhaps the 15 year-old caper has retained a large number of the supporters who drove it all the way to a mighty $219 million haul at the box office, turning What Happens in Vegas into a money-making machine based on its relatively meager by comparison $35 million budget.
It wasn’t exactly well-received by critics, with a 25 percent Rotten Tomatoes score and 35 percent audience approval rating parlaying into a pair of Razzie nominations for Worst Actress and Worst Screen Couple, even if it did manage to avoid the ignominy by “losing” both trophies to Paris Hilton’s work in seminal cinematic classic The Hottie and the Nottie.
Either way, Fuller’s bachelor and Diaz’s career woman waking up after a drunken night to discover they’ve tied the knot has exploded in renewed vigor to emerge as one of the top-viewed films on the biggest streamer there is.