Tom Cruise's $162M Action Thriller Lands On Netflix's Top 10 Chart 8 Years Later (2024)

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back has become a success on Netflix in the United States eight years after its theatrical debut. The 2016 action-thriller sequel starring Tom Cruise is an adaptation of the 2013 Lee Child novel Never Go Back, following Cruise's title character attempting to uncover a government conspiracy and clear the name of his former Army unit's leader, Major Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders). The Jack Reacher: Never Go Back cast also includes Aldis Hodge, Danika Yarosh, Holt McCallany, and Jessica Stroup.

Netflix has now calculated their Top 10 most-watched movies in the United States for the week of July 29 through August 4. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back has landed on the chart at No. 2, above the new Netflix original Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie. It is also the third-oldest movie on the entire chart, behind a pair of 2015 releases, namely Minions (No. 7), which is likely trending because of the animated franchise's current theatrical hit Despicable Me 4, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (No. 8).

Is Jack Reacher: Never Go Back's Reputation Being Rehabilitated?

The Movie Wasn’t Necessarily Well-Received In 2016

The degree of the movie's Netflix success may come as a surprise considering its overall reception in 2016. It was not necessarily a financial failure, as it made $162.1 million against its $60 million budget. This was enough to make it the 57th highest-grossing movie of the year and outgross prominent 2016 titles including Don't Breathe, The Purge: Election Year, 10 Cloverfield Lane, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. However, this was a significant drop from 2012's Jack Reacher, which made $218.3 million against the same budget and was the 37th highest-grossing movie of its own year.

The 2016 movie's Rotten Tomatoes scores also showed a significant decrease in interest on the part of both audiences and critics after both groups gave mildly Fresh scores to the first movie. However, even for the better-received original, neither score reached higher than 70% and was thus just a few percentage points over the 60% threshold past which a movie is considered Fresh. Below, see how both the Tom Cruise Jack Reacher movies performed on the review aggregator platform:

The movie's contemporary reviews suggest that critics found Tom Cruise to be trying his hardest, but they did not think the movie rose above being an action clone, paling in comparison to his Mission: Impossible movies. At the time, Cruise had just been starting to reinvigorate that franchise with his now well-known penchant for doing his own stunts in major moments such as running down the side of the Burj Khalifa in 2011's Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and holding his breath for six minutes to perform in a flooded tank in 2015's Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation.

However, the fact that the movie immediately reached No. 2 - above more current acquired titles including The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Tarot, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, and Land of Bad - could show that the movie's reputation has changed somewhat in the intervening years. This could be because there is a different understanding of what it means to be a Tom Cruise action movie in 2024. Even if Never Go Back doesn't quite live up to the stunt-filled Mission: Impossible - Fallout or Top Gun: Maverick, it is possible that audiences are eager to follow more of his legacy characters on their adventures.

Is The Reacher Show Helping The Tom Cruise Movies?

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back Wasn’t Necessarily Well-Received In 2016

The fact that the 2016 movie has landed so high on the chart despite its critical and commercial reception coiuld also very well be because of the popularity of the Prime Video show Reacher, which is adapted from the same series of Lee Child novels. Instead of Cruise, the show features Alan Ritchson in the title role, and while there is some basic overlap in the premise and character, there are otherwise no links between the two franchises. However, the increased interest in the source material could boost interest in adaptations across the board.

Ultimately, given the fact that the show is still running and has already been renewed for the upcoming season 3, it seems unlikely that there will ever be a third movie starring Tom Cruise in the title role that follows up on the Jack Reacher: Never Go Back ending. However, the show and the movies seem to have entered a sort of symbiotic relationship that they did not have before. While the movie franchise remains dormant for the time being, its reputation may continue to be rehabilitated if the 2016 installment's Netflix popularity translates to an increase in general affection.

Source: Netflix

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

2.0

pg-13

Action

Thriller

Where to Watch

• stream
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Not available

*Availability in US

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is the sequel to the 2012 original based on the Novel by Lee Child. Finally trying to meet face to face with his support over the years, Jack heads to Washington to meet Major Susan Turner, only to discover that she has been accused of treason and arrested. Jack quickly deduces that she is being framed - and after helping her escape, the two team up to get to the center of a deadly government conspiracy.

Director

Edward Zwick

Release Date

October 21, 2016

Studio(s)

Paramount Pictures

Distributor(s)

Paramount Pictures

Writers

Edward Zwick

Cast

Tom Cruise , Danika Yarosh , Robert Knepper

Runtime

118minutes

Franchise(s)

Jack Reacher

prequel(s)

Jack Reacher

Budget

$65 million