When we last checked in on the Max streaming battlefront, both the heroes and the forces of darkness were testing their new recruits in the field; The Holdovers and Lisa Frankenstein for the heroes, Minions: The Rise of Gru for the villains. All the while, Madame Web and her cynical, artistically bankrupt cohorts continued to litter the landscape as Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and Beetlejuice tangoed on the podium with The Watchers.
But now, Madame Web stands almost completely alone; Night Swim has been eviscerated, Tarot is nowhere to be seen, and the prodigal son Minions: The Rise of Gru proved to not be so prodigal after all. Indeed, it appears the forces of darkness are on the brink of defeat, especially given the emergence of a legendary hero seeking to vindicate itself after falling to Madame Web in the early stages of this campaign.
Per FlixPatrol, this day of Sept. 18 has seen Shrek break into the Top 10 most-viewed films on Max, where it currently shores up 10th place, just a few hours/points shy of Madame Web‘s ninth place. The sorry Sony superhero slog, of course, claimed Shrek as its first victim when it first started terrorizing the streaming world on Netflix, but with this change of scenery and nary an ally to its name, Madame Web might not stand much of a chance this time around.
But Madame Web‘s empire is just one player in the Max theater; there’s still many more campaigns seeking their conclusion. One of them is Furiosa‘s battle against her old enemy The Garfield Movie, who first gouged Furiosa‘s box office chances before partnering with The Watchers to dethrone the George Miller epic from the top of Max’s charts. And despite a recent intervention from Beetlejuice (third place), The Watchers continues to reign supreme, with Furiosa still taking up second place.
Enter, however, The Batman, another heavily-stylized character study that has naturally found kinship with Furiosa, and is currently launching an assault on The Garfield Movie as retribution for its scandalous guerilla tactics. Mind you, The Batman still has a way to go before its seventh place turns into the sixth place currently held by The Garfield Movie, but the streaming wars are nothing if not a conflict of attrition.
Unfortunately, The Watchers must have anticipated The Batman‘s eventual involvement, because, in true Gotham fashion, it’s plunged the charts into some perverted martial law consisting of cops and the military. Indeed, from fourth place does Bad Boys: Ride or Die enforce some entirely passable, legacy sequel oppression upon the denizens of the Max charts, while Fury—the David Ayer-helmed/penned war film starring Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Peña, and Jon Bernthal as a tank crew desperately fighting their way through World War II-era Germany —takes aim at dissenters from eighth place.
And all the while, David Fincher’s The Killer, a Netflix original film that somehow found its way onto Max, continues to lurk in fifth place like it has for so many weeks now. What could be the angle of this shadowy mercenary? Could it have been pulling these political strings the whole time? Was The Killer the true ringleader of this Watchers empire installation? Was the obliteration of Madame Web‘s sect of cinematic garbage all part of the plan? The battle, as they say, rages on.