The Gray Man Becomes Netflix’s #1 Movie of the Year

The Gray Man hit Netflix last month, and while it got mixed reactions from critics and audiences, the movie is having a successful run on the streaming site. The movie earned Netflix’s second-biggest opening weekend of the year for a movie after The Adam Project. However, it has now earned the title of Netflix’s #1 movie of the year and #4 of all time. Earlier today, directors Joe and Anthony Russo took to Instagram to celebrate the news. 

“Huge congrats to The Gray Man team! And thanks to all of you for watching. 👊👊,” they wrote. You can check out the post below:

Soon after The Gray Man was released, Netflix announced a sequel and spinoff in an attempt to create a “major spy franchise.” The Gray Man will receive a direct sequel with leading man Ryan Gosling returning along with the Russos and co-writer Stephen McFeely. The Russos, Mike Larocca, Joe Roth, and Jeffrey Kirschenbaum will all produce the follow-up. 

In addition to the sequel, Netflix is also developing a spinoff film that is “set to explore a different element of The Gray Man universe.” This untitled spinoff will be scribed by Deadpool writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese. Considering the fate of Chris Evans’ character in the movie, we do not expect him to return for the sequel. However, there’s always a chance he could pop up again if the spinoff takes place before the first film. Previously, Joe Russo teased that Evans is playing a “sociopath,” which is a definite departure from his days as Captain America.

“We didn’t have to sell Chris on the role; Chris sold us, in a way,” Joe Russo told Den of Geek. “We were talking to him as we were wrapping up Infinity War and then Avengers: Endgame about what’s next for him or where he wanted to go in his career, and he said, ‘You know what? I’m comfortable enough in my life and the work I’ve done that I’m just interested in taking risks moving forward, and I just want to play challenging characters.’ So it seemed obvious to us that the right move here would be to offer Chris the sociopath and not the hero.”

“The intention is for it to be competitive with any theatrical and the ability to do with Gosling and Evans is a dream for us,” Joe Russo previously said about the project. “The idea is to create a franchise and build out a whole universe, with Ryan at the center of it. We have all committed to the first movie and that’s got to be great to get us to the second movie. These are master assassins and Gosling’s character gets burned by the CIA and Evans’ character has to hunt him down. We have a great working relationship with Netflix, and we go back almost 20 years with Scott Stuber. We formed AGBO to be an agnostic storytelling company, where we figure out the best platform. We think Netflix is the perfect place for this film.”

The Gray Man is streaming on Netflix.