There truly is no accounting for taste.
As per The Hollywood Reporter, it was reported that Murder Mystery, the new comedy starring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston, has broken all kinds of Netflix records:
“30,869,863 accounts watched Murder Mystery in its first 3 days – the biggest opening weekend ever for a Netflix Film. 13,374,914 accounts in the US and Canada, and 17,494,949 more worldwide.”
Just to round things down to their most simplest terms, let us say that just one person per account watched the movie (hugely unlikely, but for the sake of argument). And let us say, on average, a cinema ticket might cost $10 per person.
That would equate to Murder Mystery having a $300 million opening weekend, which is more than Deadpool, The Dark Knight Rises, or most of the Harry Potter movies made in their opening weekends.
Of course, we can’t directly equate Netflix opening weekends to actual cinema numbers, because all it takes to watch something on Netflix is your a password, and the ability to push play.
Murder Mystery is the latest entry in Sandler’s multi-film deal with Netflix (which kicked off with the horrifically unfunny The Ridiculous 6), and it co-stars Jennifer Aniston, Luke Evans, Gemma Arterton, and Terrence Stamp, is written by James Vanderbilt (who wrote Zodiac for David Fincher, unbelievably) and directed by the guy behind 41 episodes of Workaholics (which is somewhat more believable).
Increasingly, it is becoming apparent that Sandler’s movies are just mediums for him to film in exotic locations – Blended was filmed in South Africa, Just Go With it shot in Hawaii, Grown Ups seemed to take place almost entirely at a water park? – and Murder Mystery is no different, filmed on location at Lake Como in Italy.
The fact that Murder Mystery holds a score of 38% on Metacritic, and 45% on Rotten Tomatoes, doesn’t seem to matter, nor the fact that it is his best reviewed live-action comedy since 2009’s Funny People.
Here’s the trailer, in case you’re one of the few who didn’t watch the movie this week already:
Clip via Netflix
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