The streaming wars have spawned smaller battles between platforms for the attention of separate demographics. For instance, Netflix has the true-crime market cornered. Meanwhile, Apple TV has established itself as the go-to destination for long-form sci-fi. Prime Video, on the other hand, seems to be the dominant platform for male audiences with long-running shows such as Bosch, The Boys, and Reacher. Netflix recently made an attempt to capture the attention of this demographic with a big-budget new show that seems to have delivered the results expected from it. The show isn’t strictly original, since it’s based on a character that was first introduced in a novel several decades ago. Nor is it strictly a remake: the source novel was adapted into a popular 2004 movie. Created by Kyle Killen, the show in question seems to have struck a fine balance between IP recognition and freshness.
It premiered with a seven-episode first season on April 30, and spent many of the subsequent days at the top of the Netflix viewership charts. It was only recently overtaken by a slew of new releases. However, according to Netflix’s own data, the show in question was its most-watched English-language title for two weeks in a row. During this two-week period, it accumulated around 23 million views and a total of more than 130 million hours viewed. On both occasions, it outperformed the true-crime series Should I Marry a Murderer?, which came in at the number two spot.
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
Netflix Seems to Have Found Its Next Big Action Series
We’re talking, of course, about Man on Fire. Starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in the role previously played by Denzel Washington in the cult classic 2004 movie of the same name, the series takes place in modern-day Rio de Janeiro. It follows the mysterious former special forces soldier who goes on a revenge mission with a young woman played by Billie Boullet. The series also features Bobby Cannavale, Alice Braga, and Scoot McNairy, and should fill the gap left by The Night Agent following its fourth and final season. Man on Fire received mixed-to-positive reviews and is currently sitting at a 60% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, “Man on Fire mostly punches above its weight in a television adaptation that touches on new emotional and action-packed heights, despite its narrative pitfalls, thanks to the devoted and unflinching performance by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II.” The source novel that inspired both the movie and the show had several sequels, which means that Netflix has material for more seasons. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
