The Electric State seemed to do anything but sizzle in its opening weekend.
Netflix‘s recent star-studded dystopian adventure film does rank as the most popular film on the streamer in this week’s Top 10 Movies in the U.S., though that may be just a matter of timing, as the list was updated just days after the movie’s March 14 release.
Vulture‘s West Coast editor Joe Adalian summed up the Netflix standings of Joe Russo and Anthony Russo‘s latest film on Bluesky, explaining in a March 18 post that the film garnered only 25.2 million views globally in its opening weekend, “well below big action hits like Carry On and The Gray Man and likely won’t rank among top 10 biggest opening weekends of the year.”
What’s On Netflix put those numbers further into perspective, only ranking above Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire, Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver, The Six Triple Eight and Unfrosted in a chart outlining the cumulative views of Netflix Originals in their first week streaming.
With a $320 million budget, The Electric State is Netflix’s most expensive original movie, followed by The Gray Man at $200 millon, Red Notice at $200 million, The Irishman at $160 million, and 6 Underground at $150 million to round out the streaming giant’s five most expensive films, per ScreenRant.
Unfortunately for the Russo Brothers, the movie clearly isn’t hitting as hard as their past successes. The directing duo is best known for their work with Marvel, which includes Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, and the Avengers films Infinity War and 2019’s Endgame, which was at point point the highest-grossing film of all time with $2.79 billion at the global box office.
Their latest, The Electric State, is based on Simon Stålenhag’s graphic novel of the same name. The movie follows Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown), who teams up with Keats (Chris Pratt) and his robot named Herman (voiced by Anthony Mackie) in order to try and find her brother Christopher (Woody Norman), who she thought had died.
In addition to Mackie, the film boasts a voice cast of A-listers, including Woody Harrelson, Hank Azaria, Jenny Slate, and Brian Cox. Others credited in the movie include Ke Huy Quan, Stanley Tucci, Michelle Yeoh, Colman Domingo, and Jason Alexander.
DECIDER contributor John Serba told viewers to SKIP IT in his Electric State review, writing that the Russo Brothers “have churned out the ultimate overpriced, overblown widget, a conglomeration of compelling IP rendered generic, wearisome needle drops, slumming-for-bucks talent and unceasing green-screenery, all executed with nary a smidgen of artistic vision. It’s a formula that’s positively Netflixian.”