The notion that time is cyclical has been roundly shot down by scientists the world over, but the concept of Hollywood being anything except linear keeps on throwing up irrefutable proof, with 2003’s S.W.A.T. serving as a solid example 20 full years ago.
Director Clark Johnson’s unspectacular actioner was a solid box office success after bringing in upwards of $200 million in ticket sales, but it’s what happened before and after that sums up the industry’s approach to IP. Adapted from the popular 1970s TV series of the same name, the big screen reboot was basically the do-over of a show that originated as a spin-off.
From there, S.W.A.T. ended up launching a pair of tedious direct-to-video successors of its own through 2011’s Firefight and 2017’s Under Siege, neither of which were even remotely connected to the feature-length original that boasted the likes of Samuel L. Jackson, Colin Farrell, Michelle Rodriguez, and Jeremy Renner among its talented ensemble.
With the well run well and truly dry, S.W.A.T. was subsequently rebooted yet again as the Shemar Moore-fronted episodic adventure, which was recently canceled after six seasons and then un-canceled immediately afterwards in a truly bizarre U-turn. Whenever the latest iteration of the property actually ends, then maybe it’ll be the end of the line for the franchise once and for all, but we’ve been conditioned to doubt that very much.
Either way, it’s the silver screen shoot ’em up that’s been taking the streaming charts to task this week, with FlixPatrol naming S.W.A.T. as a Top 10 hit in Prime Video in multiple countries across the world.
