Netflix may be home to some major box office wins like Everything Everywhere All At Once and Knives Out, but it will soon be the streaming home of a film on the other end of the spectrum. Not only considered one of the biggest box office bombs of 2018, but of all-time, the Peter Jackson-produced young adult post-apocalyptic steampunk film Mortal Engines is set to head to Netflix in April.
Produced by Jackson and directed by Christian Rivers, Mortal Engines is based on Phillip Reeve’s novel of the same name. Set hundreds of years after a cataclysmic event destroyed civilization and in a steampunk future where entire cities have been mounted on wheels and motorized, the film centers around Hester Shaw, the only one who can stop the city of London from devouring everything in its path. Mortal Engines stars Hera Hilmar, Robert Sheehan, Hugo Weaving, Jihae, Ronan Raftery, Leila George, Patrick Malahide, and Stephen Lang. It is set to be available for streaming on Netflix beginning Monday, April 1.
Videos by PopCulture.com
Although Mortal Engines seemed poised to pack theaters with Jackson, a three-time Oscar-winning filmmaker, attached and as an adaptation of a hit early millennium Scholastic sci-fi series, the film proved to do the exact opposite. The film only grossed $83.7 million against a production budget of $100-150 million, and, according to Deadline, ultimately lost the studio an estimated $175 million. Those numbers cemented Mortal Engines‘ place as not only one of the biggest box office flops of its 2018 release year, but also of all time.
Those box office numbers weren’t the only bad news for the movie. Mortal Engines also failed to rally much praise from critics and audience members. The movie currently only holds a 26% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes. The critics consensus reads, “Mortal Engines has no shortage of eye-catching special effects, but lacks enough high-octane narrative fuel to give this futuristic fantasy sufficient cinematic combustion.” Meanwhile, the audience score sits at 48%, making it certified rotten in both metrics.
Mortal Engines will be available to stream on Netflix beginning April 1 alongside a round of new additions, including Baby Driver, The Matrix, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and more. Netflix’s April 2024 lineup also features The Circle Season 6, Black Sails Seasons 1-4, King Richard, and more. To see the list of titles leaving the streamer next month, click here.
