You might find this hard to believe, but Spenser Confidential is Netflix’s third most-watched original movie ever after racking up 85 million streams in the first four weeks following its release last March, despite the fact that it didn’t seize the zeitgeist like some of the platform’s other splashy originals to have debuted over the last twelve months, such as Extraction, The Old Guard or Enola Holmes.
The action comedy no doubt benefited from arriving just when the Coronavirus pandemic saw huge parts of the world locked down, and the first thought on everyone’s mind when they’ve got so much extra free time on their hands all of a sudden is to fire up Netflix. Director Peter Berg’s fifth movie in a row with Mark Wahlberg hardly broke any new or even remotely original ground, but it hits all of the beats you’d expect from the duo given their respective and extensive backgrounds in the genre.
A sequel was officially announced to be in the works last September, but just a couple of weeks after Spenser Confidential‘s one-year anniversary, it’s now made a comeback on the Top 10 most-watched list. Critics weren’t particularly enamored, with the film currently holding a mediocre Rotten Tomatoes score of 37%, but it’s been proven on countless occasions that B-tier actioners are like catnip to Netflix’s 200 million subscribers.
It’s not Mark Wahlberg or Peter Berg’s best effort by any means, although Winston Duke gives a scene-stealing supporting performance, but it’s a perfectly serviceable and undemanding way to pass a couple of hours. Spenser Confidential looks to be the latest addition to Netflix’s rapidly expanding roster of franchises, too, so it’s only fitting that it would circle back around twelve months later and return to the upper echelon of the viewership chart.