Subscribers may have accidentally launched the wrong movie to Top 10 streaming success

This weekend brought the release of Tarik Saleh’s The Contractor, a gritty action thriller that stars Chris Pine as a discharged solider who dives headfirst into the world of privateering, only to get a lot more than he bargained for when he’s stranded behind enemy lines and in the midst of a conspiracy.

As a brand new title featuring some recognizable names, a familiar premise, and plenty of running and gunning, it was only natural that the movie would instantly become one of the most-watched titles on Amazon after being made available to rent or purchase internationally.

However, over on Prime Video, it’s 2007 Wesley Snipes vehicle The Contractor that’s rocketed up the charts out of nowhere, to the extent that it now ranks as the eighth-top film on the platform’s global rankings as per FlixPatrol.

Is it a coincidence that two actioners with exactly the same title have both reached the Top 10 on free streaming and paid VOD on Amazon? Or have mistakes been made somewhere along the line?

For what it’s worth, Snipes’ The Contractor is pretty terrible, with the jobbing star going through the motions as a former CIA operative framed for murder who ends up on the run trying to clear his name. We’re not trying to make any broad assumptions, but it’s definitely interesting that the duplicates have been making such a splash at the same time.

If you have to choose one, then you should probably go for Pine’s The Contractor. It isn’t great, but at least it tries to reinvent a familiar setup to a certain extent.