If you opened your Netflix app at any point over the past few days, then you’re no doubt aware that the streaming giant dropped two high-profile feature films just before Christmas — both of which got seriously massive budgets as well as splashy marketing campaigns from the streamer. The two movies, Rebel Moon and Maestro, also both hailed from directors with big-time star wattage — which is why, heading into the holiday period, it kind of felt like Netflix was about to rack up some big wins.
Until, that is, the scathing reviews for Rebel Moon started rolling in. And then, as if that wasn’t enough, Bradley Cooper’s Maestro — the highly anticipated follow-up to his 2018 directorial debut A Star is Born — seems to have just disappeared into the ether following its streaming debut on Dec. 20.
After racking up respectable 80% and 72% critics’ and audience scores, respectively, on Rotten Tomatoes (and a 6.9/10 on IMDb), Maestro is currently nowhere to be found on Netflix’s US Top 10 chart for both today nor the week. It also didn’t chart at all on Netflix’s just-updated weekly global Top 10 ranking, which is quite a shock considering the movie stars Cooper as Leonard Bernstein, the celebrated conductor who was the first born in the US to receive international acclaim.
Bernstein’s wife, Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein, is played in the movie by Carey Mulligan. “I think people will see the complexity of marriage and the many forms love can take,” script co-writer Josh Singer said about the movie in a Netflix promotional interview. “I think those are both powerful themes.”
The Ankler’s morning newsletter The Wake Up, meanwhile, notes that Maestro had a reported budget of $80 million — “a big spend just for a (potential) Oscar halo. On top of Oscar campaign spending, and a solid marketing campaign to date.” Also curious: Netflix’s recently released May December, starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, managed to at least hit #9 on Netflix after its opening weekend — with, I might add, only three days of viewership under its belt (compared to the full week that Maestro has already had so far).
It will be very interesting to get next week’s global Top 10 data in hand to see if Maestro has fared any better in the post-Christmas lull, when viewers have more time on their hands. It would certainly be a shame for the movie, with another bravura performance from Cooper, to simply have come and gone with barely a whimper.