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This once-lower-performing 2014 Ridley Scott film is a hit on Netflix

The film found its way into a top 10 spot with the streaming giant, becoming one of the most watched English-language films on the platform.
This once-lower-performing 2014 Ridley Scott film is a hit on Netflix
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Once considered a flop when it failed to live up to its blockbuster expectations, the 2014 film "Exodus: Gods and Kings," directed by hit-maker Ridley Scott, is now seeing its glory days in the age of streaming on Netflix. 

The film has landed in the top 10 on the platform,becoming one of the streaming giant's most streamed English-language films. 

The biblical epic tale starring big Hollywood names including Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, John Turturro, Aaron Paul, Ben Mendelsohn, Sigourney Weaver and Ben Kingsley, has a dismal 31% rating on the website Rotten Tomatoes, a widely trusted aggregator of film reviews. 

But the movie has seen a flash of success on Netflix for the first week of the year, even though, as Screen Rant points out, it's the oldest film on the list. 

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Even with its poor rating from some, the movie grossed $268.2 million total at the box office, becoming the 32nd highest-grossing film of the year of its release globally. The movie, though, was still considered somewhat of a failure behind the scenes after it didn't reportedly meet its break-even budget mark. 

Some critics were scathing in their reviews of the film. 

Brian Eggert of Deep Focus Review wrote, "The most essential element lacking from the production, beyond even its historically inaccurate cast, remains the film's inability to find a new or novel relevance for an audience who has heard this story countless times before."

"How so many talented people came together here and just so completely whiffed on one of the most incredible stories ever written is beyond me," wrote Kip Mooney of Central Track. 

The film, which runs 2 hours and 30 minutes and was released in theaters in December of 2014, can be viewed on Netflix and other popular streaming platforms including Max, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV as part of the subscription or for an extra on-demand price. 


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