Netflix’s ‘Atlas’ and ‘Mother of the Bride’ Were Widely Panned — and They’re Also Two of the Streamer’s Biggest Movies of 2024 So Far
Are there millions of people hate-watching movies on Netflix?
Two of the streaming giant’s original films, sci-fi feature “Atlas,” starring Jennifer Lopez, and romantic comedy “Mother of the Bride,” starring Brooke Shields and Miranda Cosgrove, garnered notably poor reviews and audience-rating scores. But both were among the most popular films on Netflix in the first half of 2024, according to the company’s latest massive data report: “Atlas” registered 77.1 million views worldwide and “Mother of the Bride” had 77.7 million.
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Those metrics put both in the top 10 of Netflix’s most-watched movies for the first six months of the year — all the more remarkable because the report measured less than two months of viewing. “Mother of the Bride” debuted May 9, and “Atlas” dropped on May 24.
“Atlas” has a meager 19% critics score (based on 110 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes, and “Mother of the Bride” is even lower at 13% (48 reviews). Variety‘s review of “Atlas” called it a “shrug-worthy sci-fi vehicle” representing an “underwhelming return to the kind of projects that have maintained Lopez’s place in the Hollywood firmament.” About “Mother of the Bride,” Variety gave it faint praise, calling it an “aggressively inoffensive rom-com.”
For the sake of comparison, Netflix’s No. 1 film for the first half of 2024, “Damsel” starring Millie Bobby Brown as a resourceful princess who must fight for her own survival, has a not-so-great 56% critics score. The No. 2 most-watched title “Lift,” an actioner starring Kevin Hart, is at 29%.
To be sure, there’s often a disconnect about what movie critics find laudable and what audiences actually gravitate toward. Netflix’s data shows that, in this case, bad reviews don’t necessarily deter people from selecting a movie to watch — even if they’re watching it, perhaps, to see how bad it allegedly is.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has regularly pointed out that the streamer programs a smorgasbord of content, appealing to a wide variety of interests.
“People often ask me if we need so many movies and TV shows on Netflix,” Sarandos said, speaking at the Royal Television Society conference in London this week. “I always answer with an emphatic yes. People have such different and eclectic tastes that you can’t afford to program for just one sensibility. You have to love it all — prestige dramas, indie films, true crime, romantic comedies, stand-up, documentaries and reality TV.”
For the record, here are the top 10 films on Netflix, ranked by views, from January-June 2024:
“Damsel”: 143.8 million views
“Lift”: 129.4 million views
“Society of the Snow” (“La sociedad de la nieve): 103.8 million views
“Under Paris” (“Sous la Seine”): 84.7 million views
“The Super Mario Bros. Movie”: 80.3 million views
“Mother of the Bride”: 77.7 million views
“Atlas”: 77.1 million views
“Minions”: 72.7 million views
“Irish Wish”: 72.1 million views
“The Boss Baby”: 63.6 million views
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