Apple’s streaming service tends to get written off by mainstream press outlets as something of an also-ran, such dismissiveness generally being the result of third-party measurements of Apple TV+’s small-scale viewership. But for this week, at least, the streamer can say it has one of the biggest movies across the entire streaming landscape. And all it took was shelling out the big bucks to land The Instigators, a comedic heist drama from Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, and director Doug Liman.
This snapshot of the top streaming movies for the 7-day period that ended on Aug. 14 comes from the streaming search engine Reelgood, a service that monitors 20 million viewing decisions each month across every streaming platform in the US. Its latest snapshot of the Top 10 streaming movies of the week includes:
- The Instigators (Apple TV+)
- Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (Hulu)
- The Bikeriders (Peacock)
- Deadpool 2 (Disney+)
- Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (Netflix)
- Twister (Max)
- Challengers (MGM+)
- IF (Paramount+)
- Deadpool (Max)
- Wicked Little Letters (Netflix)
That’s not really all that interesting of a list, if you ask me, as evidenced by the dearth of original movies from any of the major streamers — with the exception of The Instigators on Apple TV+.
I’ve written about this often, but the fact of the matter is that when it comes to original feature films the general public just increasingly does not seem to want what the streamers are offering. Netflix’s latest big movie The Union, starring Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry, is one of many examples of this I could point to. Likewise, despite its #1 showing this week, The Instigators is still saddled with poor critics’ and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes (41% and 58%, respectively).
About the movie’s plot, Apple summarizes it thus: “Rory (Matt Damon) and Cobby (Casey Affleck) are reluctant partners: A desperate father and an ex-con thrown together to pull off a robbery of the ill-gained earnings of a corrupt politician.
“But when the heist goes wrong, the two find themselves engulfed in a whirlwind of chaos, pursued not only by police, but also backwards bureaucrats and vengeful crime bosses. Completely out of their depth, they convince Rory’s therapist (Hong Chau) to join their riotous getaway through the city, where they must put aside their differences and work together to evade capture — or worse.”
Is there something about trying to repackage the movie experience into a small-screen format that gets lost in translation? I suspect it’s a mixture of that plus feeling like the original movies that the streamers keep giving us fall short when compared to a season of TV that you can really sink your teeth into. Whatever the reason, though, it’s a shame. I don’t want to live in a world of entertainment where feature films are just an afterthought from the streamers that upended Hollywood to begin with.
