When a fan-favorite blockbuster or critically acclaimed awards contender becomes a hit on streaming, it’s not a shock. The positive buzz and accolades naturally draw people to the film since they have heard that it’s worthy of their time and they want to experience it for themselves. Typically, viewers don’t seek out films that have been critically panned. With so many options to choose from, negative reviews can be a death knell for certain movies, causing them to quickly fade into obscurity. But sometimes, a movie is so bad, people feel compelled to see how bad it really is. Just reading about it won’t suffice.
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That seems to be the reason why Prime Video has a new streaming hit on its hands. According to FlixPatrol, which ranks the popularity of titles on streaming services, Amazon’s War of the Worlds ranks second on the list of the Top 10 movies on Prime. It’s behind only fellow Amazon original The Pickup.
Debuting on Prime on July 30th, it didn’t take long for the latest adaptation of War of the Worlds to find itself on the list of the worst movies of all time. At one point, the film had an incredibly rare 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes (as of this writing, the score has improved to a whopping 3%). Despite the very negative critical reception, War of the Worlds quickly climbed to the top of the streaming charts.
Directed by Rich Lee, War of the Worlds stars Ice Cube as Will Radford, a Homeland Security analyst who discovers aliens are invading Earth. The film has been heavily criticized for several reasons, including inundating viewers with Amazon product placement throughout its run time. One critic said War of the Worlds is “completely unwatchable on every level in every way” and bashed it for relegating the alien invasion to “barely a backdrop.”
If it isn’t clear, people aren’t watching the new War of the Worlds because it’s the next sci-fi classic. Morbid curiosity is the reason why the film has become such a draw. From a certain point of view, it makes sense. When a movie is this widely panned that it’s considered one of the worst of all time, people want to see if it actually lives up to that billing. It’s the inverse of streaming a Best Picture nominee. Also, there’s an audience for “it’s so bad, it’s good movies.” Some viewers enjoy watching bad movies, finding entertainment in inept storytelling and baffling filmmaking choices. It seems War of the Worlds fits that bill and allows people to channel Mystery Science Theater 3000.
It probably helps that War of the Worlds is available for “free,” as it can be watched by anyone with a Prime subscription. If this was playing in theaters, it’d likely be a box office bomb. Asking people to make the trip to theater and pay a ticket for something that’s awful is a tough ask. As we’ve seen with box office flops that go on to find an audience on streaming, it’s a lot easier to watch something like War of the Worlds from the comfort of home. It’ll be interesting to see how long it remains on the top of the streaming charts before it falls off.
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Image courtesy of Netflix
