The year is 1987; the one and only Arnold Schwarzenegger has established himself as the action hero icon of the moment, and the world stands at the ready to drink in whatever gonzo romp of masculinity he throws in its face next.
Up to this point, Schwarzenegger most notably wowed as Conan and the T-800, but this time, he’s stepping into the shoes of Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer to fight tooth and nail with one of the most prominent hunters in all of fiction. Indeed, Predator was born, and sci-fi was never the same again.
In the 17 years since, the Yautja have spearheaded more complete films like Predator 2, utter dumpster fires like Predators, remarkable modern resurgences like Prey, and the upcoming Predator: Badlands. But it’s the most mediocre of the Predator sect that has now reached the apex on Netflix.
Per FlixPatrol, this day of Oct. 11 sees The Predator — the Shane Black-directed 2018 iteration of the Yautja predicament — top the worldwide Netflix film charts. The film stars Boyd Holbrook as Quentin “Quinn” McKenna, a U.S. Army sniper who becomes a government liability after encountering a Yautja, which agent Will Traeger (Sterling K. Brown) intends to capture and experiment on. Quinn, of course, knows better and rounds up a ragtag team of discharged former Marines to eliminate the Predator.
The Predator stands out as the most comedic (read: populist) film in the franchise, an approach that works well enough for a commercial flick to offset the strangeness of its presence in a Predator film. As a result, it’s quite safely the most mellow Predator film out there; it doesn’t have the curious characterization and themes of Predator 2, nor the boldness of Prey, nor the dire anti-creativity of Predators. It is an entirely passable movie that happens to have a Yautja in it.
And that’s all it needed to be to surpass Netflix’s latest instance of opportunism, as The Menendez Brothers shores up third place in the worldwide rankings, with the poorly-received The Platform 2 falling to fourth place among the streamer’s hodgepodge of menu items. The Menendez Brothers true crime documentary, directed by Alejandro Hartmann, was released just three weeks after the premiere of Ryan Murphy’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story on the same platform. Why we continue to extrapolate entertainment value out of the deeply personal traumas and tribulations of real-life people, I’ll never know.
Indeed, surely we can get more than enough of a viewing experience from two Japanese high schoolers hunting down aliens and ghosts using nothing but their psychic abilities, demon shapeshifting, and occasionally fettered enthusiasm. Dan Da Dan: First Encounter, after all, is number five in the world on Netflix’s Top 10 list.
First Encounter comprises the first three episodes of the genre anarchist anime Dandadan, which is currently being rolled out on Hulu in the United States and by Netflix internationally. It’s shaping up to be one of the foremost anime juggernauts of tomorrow, and what better way to announce to the world such intentions than by making your mark on the Netflix charts, regardless of what The Predator has to say?
Published: Oct 11, 2024 02:33 pm