Tom Hanks as Commander Ernest Krause looking out a broken window in Greyhound.Image via Apple TV+
Apple struck gold by securing the distribution rights to Sony’s Greyhound five years ago. The World War 2 action movie remains one of the biggest streaming hits of the last half-decade. While the stakeholders mull over a possible sequel, another of star Tom Hanks‘ biggest recent sleeper hits is making waves on home video. The literary adaptation A Man Called Otto was released in theaters only a couple of years after Greyhound debuted on streaming; it went on to earn excellent audience scores and grossed over $100 million worldwide. According to FlixPatrol, A Man Called Otto was the seventh-most-watched title on the global Netflix charts on November 25, when the leaderboard was topped by the recently released Champagne Problems.
A Man Called Otto served as the English-language adaptation of the best-selling book by Fredrick Backman. The book was previously adapted into a Swedish-language hit titled A Man Called Ove. Produced on a reported budget of $50 million, Hanks’ movie grossed nearly $115 million at the worldwide box office. Remember, the theatrical marketplace wasn’t in the same state as it is now; this was the same year that Tom Cruise‘s Top Gun: Maverick supposedly “saved” theaters with its blockbuster performance. But films like A Man Called Otto also played their part in reviving the mid-budget landscape. However, after two hits on two different venues with Sony, Hanks and the studio’s latest collaboration, Here, tanked both critically and commercially.
‘A Man Called Otto’ Holds a Near-Perfect Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes
A Man Called Otto was directed by the journeyman Marc Forster, who experienced success in the treacly feel-good genre with the hit films Finding Neverland and Christopher Robin. He has also directed mega-budget studio tent poles such as Quantum of Solace and World War Z; the latter, starring Brad Pitt, remains a hot favorite on streaming. Forster is now set to work with Pitt’s ex-wife, Angelina Jolie, on a new comedy film titled Anxious People. A Man Called Otto opened to solid reviews — it holds a 70% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes — but its audience reception has been far superior. It now holds a near-perfect 97% audience score on RT, suggesting that it’ll remain a home video favorite for years to come. You can watch the movie on Netflix, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
Release Date
December 28, 2022
Runtime
126 minutes
Director
Marc Forster
Writers
David Magee, Fredrik Backman
Producers
Gary Goetzman, Rita Wilson, Tom Hanks, Fredrik Wikström
