It’s not uncommon for a highly-rated movie to soar to the top of Netflix’s streaming charts, but what is more uncommon is to see a film with just a 6% Rotten Tomatoes score not only break into the Top 10, but the Top 3. Director Tomas Alfredson’s 2017 psychological thriller The Snowman has managed to do just that, quickly climbing the streaming charts despite its abysmal ratings.
An adaptation of Norwegian author Jo Nesbø’s novel of the same name, The Snowman follows Detective Harry Hole, who after the death of a young woman during the first snowfall of winter finds himself in a cat-and-mouse game with “The Snowman Killer,” an elusive sociopath. The film was written by Peter Straughan, Hossein Amini, and Søren Sveistrup and stars Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Val Kilmer, and J. K. Simmons. The Snowman premiered in October 2017 at the Haifa International Film Festival before releasing in theaters later that same year, eventually making its way to Netflix, where it has found more success than it was initially met with.
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As of this posting, The Snowman ranks No. 3 in the U.S. behind A Tourist’s Guide to Love (No. 2) and Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (No. 1). Rounding out the Top 5 are The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die and Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax. The film’s current ranking is a slight drop from its previous standing, with The Snowman having enjoyed a several-days-long streak in the No. 1 spot before falling to third on April 23. According to FlixPatrol data, the film also broke into the Top 10 streaming chart in Lithuania, where it ranked No. 9 on April 22.
The Snowman‘s current Netflix success stands in stark contrast to overall terrible reception. The movie was an instant commercial failure, earning only $6.7 million in the US against a production budget of $34 million. More than just that, it was equally despised by critics and viewers alike, holding just an 18% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and only a 6% critics’ score. The film’s critics consensus reads, “a mystery that feels as mashed together and perishable as its title, The Snowman squanders its bestselling source material as well as a top-notch ensemble cast.”
Unfortunately, the response from those Netflix subscribers who have helped bolster the film’s current popularity isn’t much better. One person asked on Twitter, “How and why is The Snowman (2017) currently the number one movie on Netflix?” Somebody else tweeted that the movie is “one of the worst movies i have ever seen in my life…. yikes!” Meanwhile, journalist Ben Dreyfuss tweeted that the movie “is the perfect piece of s-box office flop to go viral on Netflix a decade after it failed in theatres. I hope this does really well and people start hashtags demanding Netflix make sequels.” The Snowman is currently streaming on Netflix.
