Netflix subscribers have helped turn the streaming service into a safe haven for underrated, little seen and quite often terrible movies to get a second lease of life. Free from the shackles of critical analysis and box office expectations, countless titles have found themselves cracking the streaming service’s Top 10 most-watched list as viewers change their habits on an almost daily basis.
Sometimes these forgotten movies fare much better than more star-studded affairs or the latest in Netflix’s long line of glossy in-house originals, and Hugh Jackman‘s Real Steel in particular has shown some incredible staying power. After blowing the dust off Shawn Levy’s 2011 would-be blockbuster and adding it to their content library on September 24th, the family-friendly film quickly entered the Top 10 chart and refused to budge, only dropping off the list earlier today.
In a time where the most-viewed titles on the platform change quite frequently, Real Steel somehow maintained a position as one of the most popular movies on the world’s biggest streaming service for a long time, and as of yesterday sat in eighth place on the U.S. rankings. When it was first released, it wasn’t exactly a bomb, but didn’t set the box office alight, either, falling agonizingly close of the $300 million mark by topping out at $299.3 million globally.
With a budget of $110 million, the profit margins simply weren’t there to make a sequel a viable proposition, despite the potential in the concept of following the standard tropes of the boxing movie but making the fighters hulking robots instead of flesh and blood pugilists. And although its days in the Top 10 now look to be over, Real Steel should nonetheless be commended for such a strong showing given that a large number of people would have had no idea it even existed until recently.