HBO Max might be the default home of DC movies, but Netflix‘s line-up is nothing to sniff at. Subscribers in various territories have access to Batman (1989), the Christopher Nolan trilogy, Man of Steel, Watchmen, and an impressively wide selection of DC animated features. But right now there’s a DC movie skyrocketing up the rankings that nobody expected to make a comeback: 2010’s The Losers.
The action-comedy is based on a Vertigo update of a classic DC property and boasts an impressive cast including Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, and Idris Elba. They are the titular losers: an elite black-ops team sent to do the dirty jobs others won’t. Over the movie they fall out with the government, go rogue, and battle to clear their name.
On its original release it met with mixed reviews, with critics saying the film tried too hard to be cool, that it’s just brainless action, and that the cast deserved better material. Audiences didn’t seem to like it much either, with the film making a measly $30m at the box office on a $25m budget.
But now The Losers is having something of a renaissance. Over the last week it’s been steadily climbing the Netflix charts and is currently #3 domestically. Internationally it’s doing even better, topping the charts to become the most-watched movie on Netflix in the world.
I suspect this is good news for James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, which stars Idris Elba in a similarly ragtag bunch of DC heroes fighting against an uncaring government. I always thought The Losers was unfairly dismissed by critics so it’s nice to see it finally get its moment in the sun. It’s probably too much to hope this success leads to a sequel, but you never know.