An Infamous Sci-Fi Misfire Becomes a Streaming Hit 13 Years After Bombing at the Box Office

Expansive worlds, spectacular visual effects, and imaginative storytelling have continued to captivate audiences and draw big crowds throughout the decades, resulting in movies like Avatar, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Jurassic World becoming some of the highest-grossing movies of all time – but the genre has also seen some massive flops. More than a decade after a sci-fi film bombed at the box office, the cinematic disaster has found renewed success on streaming.

With a 5% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes and a $76 million worldwide gross against a production budget of $65 million, Stuart Beattie’s sci-fi fantasy I, Frankenstein is a certified flop and really one of the worst-performing adaptations of the Frankenstein tale. The movie, based on Kevin Grevioux’s digital-only graphic novel, stars Aaron Eckhart as Adam, Dr. Frankenstein’s immortal creature who, two centuries after being reanimated, finds himself embroiled in a war between two immortal races. Despite being a cinematic disaster, the film enjoyed a bit of a resurrection when it joined Tubi‘s free streaming catalog on January 1st, reaching and holding the No. 10 spot on the platform’s streaming chart for two days between January 19th and 20th.

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I, Frankenstein’s Streaming Success Isn’t Surprising

I, Frankenstein’s short but impressive run on Tubi’s Top 10 chart may seem a bit odd given just how underwhelming and disastrous the movie initially performed, but it really doesn’t come as much of a shock in the larger scope of things. The film’s resurgence on streaming comes amid a significant resurgence of the Universal Monsters. Universal Pictures’ horror series, which blends horror creature characters from classic novels with original characters, is the longest-running movie franchise, and the modern era has returned many of them to the screen. Since 2020 alone, everything from The Invisible Man to Abigail has hit theaters and reached critical acclaim. There has been a particular interest in the Frankenstein tale.

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein dominated streaming following its November release on Netflix and has gone on to pick up a total of nine Oscar nominations. There is also Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride!, a new take on 1935’s The Bride of Frankenstein that is set to hit theaters on March 6, 2026.

Even outside of the current Universal Monsters hype, I, Frankenstein has made a strong case for itself being a streaming hit. In the decade since its release, the film has garnered something of a niche cult following, with some appreciating its unique, stylized approach to the classic mythos. The movie offers a unique gothic-fantasy blend that reimagines the classic creature as a hero and delivers plenty of high-energy, comic-book style action, making it an over-the-top fresh take on the classic tale that is a pretty solid mindless popcorn movie.

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