Everybody knows – or at least everyone with a soft spot for spooky season does – that the Halloween festivities “officially” kick off on the first day of September, leading to audiences everywhere indulging their favorite scary movies and TV shows. And yet, flying in the face of convention, The Grinch is currently the number one most-watched feature on the entirety of Netflix.
The streaming service has been making serious inroads into the Yuletide market in recent years by dropping a consistent string of saccharine romantic comedies that can always be relied on to draw a big crowd regardless of a critical pasting, so it’s ironic that a legacy title to have released five years ago and hoovered up over $570 million at the box office is ruling the roost.
Per FlixPatrol, the Benedict Cumberbatch-fronted tale of everyone’s favorite miserable green menace has cracked the Top 10 in 60 countries around the world since being made available in a multitude of markets this past Friday, but by the law of averages it’s managed to reach the summit of the global rankings despite only technically reaching the tippy top in six of those nations.
The Grinch was hardly greeted with open arms by critics or audiences after only securing respective Rotten Tomatoes scores of 59 and 51 percent from both parties, making it all the more remarkable that it’s managed to conquer the market leader in the streaming wars.
It won’t be the last time we see it floating around the upper echelons, either, because you can guarantee that once the festive season is in full swing, The Grinch will be back for another bite at the candy-coated apple.