In terms of the expense-to-success ratio, the biggest bomb in Netflix’s history is Jupiter’s Legacy, which came in at a cost of $200 million (not including the expense that came with the streaming service purchasing the entirety of Mark Millar’s Millarworld) and was cancelled in a matter of weeks. However, when it comes to second place, it’s hard to look past The Pentaverate.
There was plenty of buzz heading into the six-episode series before it premiered last year, and with good reason; it marked the return of Mike Myers to leading man status after almost 15 years of bit-parts where he was almost always unrecognizable and making brief cameos, with many curious to see if the Austin Powers and Wayne’s World favorite still had it.
In terms of the critical response and viewership figures, though, he did not. The conspiratorial comedy could only rustle up a 28 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and it was an utter disaster for Netflix when it came to engagement. Despite having Myers creating, writing, producing, and playing no less than eight different characters, nobody bothered to watch it.
On Netflix’s own weekly Top 10 rankings system, it was revealed that The Pentaverate made the list in one country for one week only, which was a 10th place finish in Myer’s native Canada. That’s an outright embarrassment, but the show is nonetheless offering a reminder far too late that it is a thing that exists, with ScreenRant unveiling the upcoming arrival of the vinyl soundtrack.
Based on how it fared on streaming, you’d think it won’t be selling like hotcakes, unless there are some die-hard fans of The Pentaverate out there somewhere.