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Oli Welsh has been covering the business and culture of video games for two decades. He started out writing for Edge and other publications (specializing in MMOs and Blizzard, as cover for his World of Warcraft playtime) before joining Eurogamer, where he worked for 14 years as reviews editor, deputy editor, and editor-in-chief; Eurogamer won many Games Media Awards during his tenure. At Polygon, he writes about film and TV as well as games, and provides news, analysis, and criticism on the entertainment we love and the industries that make it, all from his home in London. He loves role-playing, racing, puzzles, tactics, exploration, storytelling, Nintendo, mysteries, spies, fantasy, reality, cars, and classic cinema. He wanted to be a movie critic when he grew up, and now he’s definitely grown up, and occasionally is one. He considers this a win.
Animals is dominating the charts just about everywhere, despite terrible reviews
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We live in a world where a junky-but-fun-looking movie with a big star attached can come out of nowhere on streaming, with little marketing, and completely dominate the viewing habits of half the globe for a weekend or two. A few weeks ago, it happened with The Whisper Man, starring Robert De Niro. This week, it's the turn of Ben Affleck with Animals, an L.A.-set crime thriller also featuring Kerry Washington, Gillian Anderson, and Stephan Yeun.
According to streaming tracking site FlixPatrol, Animals is the no. 1 movie on Netflix worldwide by a huge margin. It's top of the Netflix charts in all but 14 of the 93 countries tracked by the site. It doesn't matter if you live in Qatar, Lithuania, or Trinidad and Tobago, you were probably watching Animals on Saturday night. (But the people of Poland were more into Less of a Stranger, a biopic of the local rock legend Jan Borysewicz, founder of the band Lady Pank.)
Was Animals the top movie across all streaming platforms? It's impossible to know for sure — streaming companies don't make that sort of comparable data public — although given Netflix's vast global reach, it's extremely likely. The only movie with a chance of getting remotely close is likely the current Disney Plus chart-topper, Toy Story 5.
Affleck's a household name and an enduring star, so the worldwide hegemony of Animals — which he directed and co-wrote — isn't that surprising. But it is a little more surprising given the terrible mauling that's been handed to the film by critics. It has just 35% on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie's millions of viewers aren't much more impressed — the movie's Popcornometer audience rating on the site is 41%.
Vulture's Bilge Ebiri called Animals "a catastrophe," saying that it "begins awkwardly, proceeds chaotically, and ends ludicrously." That didn't stop half the world from hitting play on it, though. And at least it sounds better than Other Mommy.