A contained 90-minute thriller that largely features a single actor onscreen for the entirety of that duration doesn’t sound like the sort of movie that would generate massive viewing figures, but The Guilty has turned out to be a runaway success for Netflix.
The latest effort from journeyman director Antoine Fuqua dominated the most-watched for weeks, holding onto the top spot from the second it debuted on October 1 to this past weekend, when it was dislodged by Dutch World War II epic The Forgotten Battle.
As per Deadline, Netflix is touting that The Guilty is on course to reach 69 million streams in its first 28 days on the platform, after topping the charts in no less than 91 countries around the world. While that isn’t quite enough to crack the all-time Top 10, it isn’t too far away. The sole star of the show celebrated the news on Instagram, which you can see below.
Strong reviews and almost universal acclaim for Gyllenhaal’s performance have seen The Guilty post a much stronger than expected showing, with viewers engrossed by the ticking clock element that sees the actor’s dispatch worker trying to help a kidnapped woman, who may turn out to be a murder victim in short order if he doesn’t get involved.
The high concept, low budget film goes to show that not every Netflix original has to cost $100 million to draw in a sizeable audience, which may spur the company on to make more projects of The Guilty‘s ilk.
Published: Oct 18, 2021 11:17 am