8-Year-Old Controversial Box Office Hit Suddenly Conquers American Netflix Top

Summary:

• Some movies led by Hollywood’s biggest stars are still not destined to have a glowing review score with both critics and viewers, and one of Matt Damon’s biggest flops proved it long ago.
• Despite being a big failure for the critics, the monster film also starring Pedro Pascal and Willem Dafoe was quite a big win in the box office back in the day and is now dominating Netflix ’s top.
• Upon its release back in 2016, the movie was given a cold shoulder due to a big controversy related to its production.

Though it’s still hard to believe that a film starring Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal and Willem Dafoe can be a total disappointment, such a movie does exist. Back in 2016, all three actors starred in a mostly Chinese-crewed, yet English-language film The Great Wall directed by Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou.

An ambitious monster film (yes, nobody quite expected that) with Hollywood’s biggest stars sharing the screen was supposed to blow everyone away, but instead was awarded with poor reviews despite impressive results in the worldwide box office.

Though The Great Wall was heavily criticized for its major controversy upon the release back in 2016, Netflix viewers don’t really seem to care about it as the movie has paved its way to the streaming’s top in the US.

The film’s name immediately evokes something battle-related in everyone’s mind later on leading to a guess that it’s nothing else but an epic historical drama, but that’s quite a common mistake. The Great Wall is a weird mix of history and some supernatural elements that seem to be accidentally inserted in here instead of another movie they belong to.

The film initially follows two European mercenary warriors portrayed by Damon and Pascal who, upon their arrival in China in a search for gunpowder, get imprisoned within The Great Wall.

After finding out that the country is being shaken by the news of an ancient alien Tao Tie terrorizing the army, both characters decide to unify their forces with the Chinese soldiers to strike the supernatural threat back.

Though The Great Wall performed quite well in the international box office garnering around $335 million against the initial budget of $150 million, the movie was still crashed by critics eventually ending up with a disheartening score of 35% on Rotten Tomatoes.

The film’s fiasco status may be due to the fact that back in the day it was accepted ambiguously as The Great Wall had a blatant Chinese storyline that somehow ended up being led by White actors.

Despite all the big controversy, The Great Wall is seemingly thriving as Netflix viewers have found their own reasons to enjoy the failed movie.