A Dead on Arrival Fantasy Bomb makes a last stand on streaming

via Universal

Very seldom can one say with any certainty that a blockbuster is certainly too big to fail, but viewed from the outside, Cowboys & Aliens ticked virtually every single box required for colossal success.

Starring in his first feature film since the start of the Marvel Cinematic Universe iron man and its sequel, Jon Favreau, was given a $160+ million budget, a proven creative team, an insanely stacked cast, and the best concepts to deliver a genre-bending fantasy that had all the tools to thrive in a crowded box Office Marketplace.

Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard were among the producers, including the writers behind Hits The mask of Zorro, Transformers, Star Trek, Lost, Children of Menand the above iron man were involved, while the cast was led by James Bond and Indiana Jones to further reinforce the film’s credentials, and we didn’t even mention that it was a comic book adaptation.

Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford were joined by Paul Dano, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Walton Goggins, Clancy Brown, Wyatt Russell and many more household names from the past, present and future, while the self-explanatory premise made it the easiest thing the world could come up with Market. And yet, Cowboys & Aliens somehow conspired crater thunderous.

It was certainly a head-scratcher, but perhaps not entirely unexpected given that reviews were consistently lukewarm and a nailed-down commercial crowd-pleaser instead suffered the shame of going under without a trace. Granted, it was far from the sum of its parts, but FlixPatrol outing Cowboys & Aliens as the most-watched title on Chili at least suggests it has enough in the tank to make a definitive stand on streaming.