You really couldn’t make up the circumstances and coincidences that have fallen into place to allow Nimona to debut as one of the biggest hits on Netflix since premiering this past Friday.
Originally developed as a Blue Sky Studios production, the plug was pulled when Disney acquired 20th Century Fox and began gutting its former competition, casting the animated adaptation onto the scrapheap. Fortunately, Netflix stepped into the breach and acquired the project, which has already proven to be a shrewd move.
While Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny becomes the latest big screen bust for the beleaguered corporation – following hot on the heels of Elemental, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Strange World, Lightyear, The Little Mermaid, and more – Nimona has wasted no time in matching its critical acclaim with bumper audience figures.
Although the film’s Rotten Tomatoes score has dipped from 98 to 94 percent, it’s still one of the best-reviewed features of the year, while FlixPatrol has revealed it to be a proud member of the Netflix Top 10 in 58 countries around the world. Unwanted by its parent company, abandoned, and left for dead in the purgatory of exiled pre-Mickey titles, the outfit may have missed a trick by not holding onto Nimona for itself.
Then again, even if it was released exclusively on Disney Plus, there’s a chance it would be gone already looking at the rampant purge of content that’s seen movies and TV shows being removed and wiped from existence only weeks after making their presence felt, so we can say this was undoubtedly a win for Nimona and Netflix all-round.