$300 Million Sci-Fi Movie Hits Netflix, Zooms to No. 1

One of the most expensive films ever made has now launched on Netflix, and has quickly shot up to #1 on the service.

The Electric State, a sci-fi adventure flick starring Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things) and Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy), released on Netflix this week. It cost over $320 million to produce, making it one of the most expensive films ever made.

The film is loosely based on the 2018 illustrated novel of the same name. It is set in a dystopian 1994, after a war between humans and robots in 1990 has left the world in an apocalyptic state. Michelle (Brown) meets a robot who claims to be controlled by her deceased younger brother, so she begins a journey to find out if he’s somehow still alive. Along the way, she meets war veteran John Keats (Pratt), who assists her in her journey. It is directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, best known for helming the last two Avengers movies for Marvel.

Reviews have not been kind to The Electric State, with its current Rotten Tomatoes score of 13% looking as dismal as the society depicted in the film. The critical consensus is that Brown and Pratt are essentially just playing a bad redux of their Stranger Things and Marvel characters, and the movie fails to grasp what made the original story interesting by turning the novel’s tragic characters and themes into boilerplate action heroes. Vulture critic Bilge Ebiri declared it “truly offputting” and a “$320 million piece of junk.”

Despite the generally poor reviews, the film has already taken the top spot on the streaming service.

The Electric State is now streaming on Netflix.