The history-making sci-fi that gleefully celebrated beating Tom Cruise to the punch survives re-entry into the streaming atmosphere

It isn’t often that Tom Cruise gets beaten at his own game, with the death-defying daredevil and A-list megastar building his career on blazing a trail for others to follow. Naturally, when he was beaten to the punch by The Challenge, there was a smug air of celebration in touting its success.

For years, the Mission: Impossible star has harbored dreams of shooting a feature film in outer space, something he’s been working on for years. However, his plans to become the first actor to head beyond the stars for the sake of a fictional movie were dashed by the Russian sci-fi.

As a result, Vladimir Putin made a point of noting that the country he presides over had made history, not-so-subtly rubbing it in the face of both Hollywood and its most famous action hero that they would never be able to claim that accolade for themselves. An undeniably impressive achievement, The Challenge even set records at the local box office with the highest-grossing opening day ever.

Should Cruise eventually fulfill his ambition and soar beyond the atmosphere, you get the distinct impression that he’ll be doing it on a substantially grander scale given his penchant for pushing himself to the physical limit every time he steps in front of a camera. Regardless of how it turns out, though, he’ll never be the first one to do it.

Outside of its trailblazing production, The Challenge wasn’t exactly rapturously received by critics either home or abroad, but its unique place in the annals of cinematic history hasn’t gone unnoticed, with FlixPatrol naming it as one of the latest titles to orbit the most-watched charts on both iTunes and Vudu.