The Gray Man has officially earned the fifth-highest opening week in Netflix history. The massively expensive action blockbuster, which was helmed by Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo, was released on the streaming service on July 22, 2022. Based on the 2009 Mark Greaney novel of the same name, the film follows Sierra Six (Ryan Gosling), an agent for a shadowy CIA organization. When he accidentally uncovers secrets that expose the current head of the program (Regé-Jean Page), he attempts a globetrotting escape with the help of agent Dani Miranda (Ana de Armas) while being pursued by the sociopathic villain Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans).
The Gray Man's success was vitally necessary for Netflix. The company already begun to pull back on their investment in big-budget blockbusters after experiencing a troubling quarterly drop in subscribers earlier this year. Although many of their expensive blockbusters, like 2021's Red Notice (which teams A-listers Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot), have been drawing huge numbers for the platform, they clearly haven't been enough to prevent subscribers from migrating to other platforms in the meantime.
Netflix has now released their official streaming chart data for the week of the Gray Man premiere. Those numbers reflect that the film has been streamed for a total of 88.55 million hours since its opening day, placing it at #1 for the week, ahead of the animated film The Sea Beast (34.14 million hours) and the Jane Austen adaptation Persuasion (29.04 million hours). Per IndieWire, this has nabbed the film the distinction of the fifth-best opening week total of all the platform's films, landing behind The Kissing Booth 3 (90.86 million hours), The Adam Project (92.43 million hours), Don't Look Up (111.03 million hours), and Red Notice (148.72 million hours).
Even before this result was revealed, it certainly could have been predicted. Just four days after its release, Netflix already announced that The Gray Man will be getting a sequel and a spinoff. This certainly went to show that the initial four-day total was also delivering above and beyond their expectations, even with the film's massive $200 million price tag.
Whether the success of The Gray Man will ultimately spell good things for Netflix's future at making big hit movies remains to be seen. Clearly, the company's decision to expand the franchise in such a way shows their continued faith in this type of project being able to see the light of day. However, it will be interesting to see if they continue to move away from this type of filmmaking on a broader scale outside of their already successful properties.
Source: IndieWire