Gerard Butler’s Forgotten Fantasy Bomb Becomes an Unexpected Streaming Hit

Throughout his decades-long career, Gerard Butler has portrayed memorable characters in blockbuster movies like 300, Law Abiding Citizen, and Den of Thieves, but not all of his films have met the same success. The actor charted one of his worst movies yet when he appeared in a star-studded 2016 fantasy action film. Critically panned and a box office bomb, the movie ultimately became a forgotten film. Nearly a decade after its release, that movie has found a new audience and success on Netflix.

Gods of Egypt, director Alex Proyas fantasy based on ancient Egyptian deities, recently debuted on Netflix, where it has become an instant streaming hit and has continued to climb the streaming charts. The movie chronicles the power struggle between Bulter’s Set, the Egyptian God of the Desert, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s Horus, the Egyptian God of Air. When Set brings chaos to the land, Horus teams up with a mortal thief, Brenton Thwaites’s Bek, to save humankind. The supporting cast includes Chadwick Boseman, Élodie Yung, Courtney Eaton, Rufus Sewell, Gerard Butler, Geoffrey Rush, and Bryan Brown as various Egyptian gods.

For the week ending Sunday, August 10, the film ranked No. 10 overall for streaming movies in the United States, falling behind other recent hits like My Oxford Year, Happy Gilmore 2, and KPop Demon Hunters, as well as fellow Butler-starring film Kandahar at No. 6. The film’s popularity has only grown since, and Gods of Egypt is continuing to climb the Netflix streaming charts. On Thursday, the movie ranked No. 6 on Netflix in the U.S. As of today, August 14, it is the sixth-most-watched movie on Netflix in the U.S.

Gods of Egypt’s current Netflix success is a bit of a surprise given its poor performance following its initial theatrical release. The movie received widespread negative reviews from critics due to its lack of diversity, weak storytelling, poor special effects and action sequences, and cringeworthy dialogue, sparking a response from Proyas.

“Seems most critics spend their time trying to work out what most people will want to hear,” he wrote on Facebook as reviews rolled in. “How do you do that? Why these days it is so easy … just surf the net to read other reviews or what bloggers are saying – no matter how misguided an opinion of a movie might be before it actually comes out.”

Gods of Egypt only earned a 15% critics’ score and 37% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. It didn’t fare any better at the box office, where it only grossed $150 million against a $140 million budget, becoming a box office bomb.

Gods of Egypt eventually fell to the wayside, overshadowed by bigger films of the year and the casts’ other projects. Proyas, meanwhile, hasn’t released another feature film since. The movie’s recent addition to Netflix’s streaming catalog has brought new eyes to the project, giving it a second chance at success.

Gods of Egypt is now streaming on Netflix.