The Daniel Craig spy thriller climbing the Netflix charts: ‘Spectre’
When Daniel Craig was roped in last December to reprise his role as the iconic Southern spy, Benoit Blanc, in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, it triggered a massive Craig watch-fest of sorts. Although our hands were tied with limited options available on Netflix back then, now, that’s just a ghost of the past, thanks to Netflix dropping the James Bond film series on its US library and sparking the rise of Spectre.
In the week dated January 19th to January 25th, two James Bond movies starring Craig made their way onto the most popular movies chart globally, No Time to Die and Spectre. While No Time to Die amassed 9.6million views, Spectre garnered 4.3million views, earning the third and seventh spots, respectively.
The Bond hype is honestly very real now, and Netflix’s big Bond drop actually marks the first time that the entire franchise is available in one place, making it incredibly easy for fans to binge the Craig era specifically.
Plus, considering Spectre serves as the direct precursor to No Time to Die, it’s just as possible that viewers are rewatching the former to refresh their memory on the storylines before leaping towards Craig’s final outing as 007.
Moreover, we’re currently in the longest gap between Bond films in history. With the buzz surrounding the 26th film growing by the minute and still no official cast confirmed for the next James Bond, fans are returning to the most modern instalments to fill the blues.
While on streaming, the resurgence is usually partly credited to new audience discovery, it’s also a fact that Spectre has aged better for some than others.
At the time of its theatrical release, Spectre was met with mixed reviews, as evidenced by its 63% on Rotten Tomatoes. But now that it’s free with a subscription, people are more open to giving it a second chance. And given the spy thriller arrived hot on the heels of Craig’s Benoit Blanc stint, it feels like algorithmic serendipity also had a play after all.
Serving as the sequel to Skyfall and the fourth film to star Craig as the fictional MI6 agent, Spectre opens with a posthumous message from the previous M for James Bond to carry out a dangerous mission in Mexico City to prevent a bombing attempt on a stadium during the Day of the Dead festival.
Spectre follows James Bond as he battles a new Director General trying to abolish the 00 section while trying to uncover a conspiracy led by Franz Oberhauser. So, just in case you’re still out of the loop, Spectre is currently streaming on Netflix.