One of 2024’s Biggest Flops Was Just Quietly Added to Netflix

Sony has, unfortunately, been responsible for some of the biggest and most maligned flops to hit theaters so far this year. Probably the most notorious of those have come in the fall, in the form of video game adaptation Borderlands, and the strange spin on beloved children’s book Harold and the Purple Crayon.

The latter, which stars Zachary Levi as an adult version of the young Harold from the book, hit theaters back in August to an icy reception from both critics and fans. Held back by horrible reviews and almost no word-of-mouth, Harold and the Purple Crayon made less than $30 million at the global box office. That’s rough when the film reportedly cost around $40 million to make (and that doesn’t include marketing). Like other infamous bombs, however, Harold and the Purple Crayon is finding a little footing in the world of streaming.

Whether it’s morbid curiosity or that Levi just has a lot of fans that don’t go out to movie theaters, Harold and the Purple Crayon is getting some eyeballs since its arrival on Netflix. The Sony adaptation was added to the Netflix lineup in the United States over the weekend, though Netflix didn’t do anything to advertise or announce its arrival. Since being added to the roster, Harold and the Purple Crayon has been slowly rising through the streamer’s movie ranks. Sunday’s edition of the Netflix Top 10 Movies list has the film listed as the sixth most popular movie on the service, which is up one spot from its seventh place standing on Saturday.

There’s an added layer to Harold and the Purple Crayon‘s recent Netflix debut. A report from Bloomberg stated that Sony actually approached Netflix about buying the distribution rights to the film, which would’ve made it a streaming exclusive rather than a theatrical release. Sony apparently felt like the Harold would struggle against other powerhouse family films like Inside Out 2 and Despicable Me 4.

Netflix has purchased other Sony films in the past, and for a long time the streamer hasn’t seemed to have an issue with releasing subpar movies. That has changed with the appointment of new original film chair Dan Lin. The longtime producer has been making an active push for Netflix to release better quality movies, and Harold and the Purple Crayon clearly didn’t fit into that initiative.

Plus, Netflix already had the first streaming rights to all of Sony’s theatrical releases, so the streamer knew that Harold and the Purple Crayon would arrive before too long.