Sandra Bullock’s 'The Unforgivable' makes Netflix's Top 10 Most Popular Movies list
Variety.com: Sandra Bullock — arguably Netflix’s first true in-house movie star — has cemented her status as its brightest.
Her new movie “The Unforgivable” has officially cracked the streamer’s Top 10 Most Popular film list, Netflix announced Tuesday. The project joins her milestone 2018 film “Birdbox” in the all-time ranking, making her the first actress with two entries on the list.
Netflix said “The Unforgivable” has been viewed 186,900,000 hours to date (a number that will likely increase as it approaches the 28 day mark, a key number in the company’s projections for viewership, which are not currently verified by outside parties). She is only matched by Ryan Reynolds, who counts “Red Notice” and “6 Underground” in the Top 10.
Bullock is both headliner and producer on “The Unforgivable,” a juicy mystery about a woman released from prison after serving 20 years behind bars for killing a police officer. On the road to rehabilitation, revenge plots and a cruel parole system thwart her fragile reentry to society. Supporting cast includes Viola Davis, Jon Bernthal and a resurgent Vincent D’Onofrio.
“Birdbox,” which was Netflix’s shining proof of concept and bragging point for years before Chris Hemsworth’s “Extraction” and Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” came around, has been viewed over 280,020,000 hours to date. While the industry and consumers have had years to adjust to premium studio movies debuting on streaming (largely thanks to COVID), it’s easy to forget how substantial the chatter was around “Birdbox.”
The high-concept horror thriller premiered in the fourth quarter of 2018, a time when Netflix film chief Scott Stuber was just building his slate. While he delivered a new movie every week in 2021, that was hardly the output from the film unit at the time, especially with a marquee name like Bullock. Social media and late night shows were abuzz over the novelty. Nearly a month after premiering, Kim Kardashian West told her Twitter followers she “really liked” the movie, and asked if anyone else had watched.
“Kimberly, like everyone in the entire world,” responded model and influencer Chrissy Teigen (how a screenshot of this interaction failed to make it into Netflix’s next quarterly earnings report mystifies me to this day).
Bullock will return to theaters next year with “The Lost City,” a romantic adventure she’ll produce and star in opposite Channing Tatum for Paramount. She’s also in the ensemble for Sony’s “Bullet Train,” alongside Brad Pitt and rapper Bad Bunny.