Gerard Butler’s career began in the mid-1990s with brief appearances in theJames Bond movie,Tomorrow Never Dies(1997) andTale of the Mummy(1998). During the early 2000s, Butler continued to star in franchise films, playing the eponymous role inDracula 2000and appearing inLara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life(2003).
Butler achieved major fame as King Leonidas in Zack Snyder’s300(2007). Beginning in 2010, he voiced Stoick the Vast in the animatedHow to Train Your Dragonfranchise and reprised the role in the recent live-action remake. The same decade, he starred as a Secret Service agent in threeHas Fallenmovies.
Butler continued building his action résumé with roles inGeostorm(2017),Den of Thieves(2018), and the disaster dramaGreenland(2020). In 2023, he starred in the airborne thrillerPlane, and now,one of Gerard Butler’s action thrillers has gained unexpected popularity on streaming.
Kandahar Becomes A Streaming Hit
Kandaharhas become a streaming hit, falling below only the movie that remains undisputed on streaming. Helmed by Ric Roman Waugh, who also wrote and directedAngel Has Fallen(2019), the 2023 action thriller is inspired by true events andstars Gerard Butler as a CIA agentwho must escape Afghanistan after his secret mission is compromised.
In addition to Butler starring in the lead role, the film features a supporting cast that includes Navid Negahban, Ali Fazal, Bahador Foladi, Nina Toussaint-White, Vassilis Koukalani, Mark Arnold, Tom Rhys Harries, Corey Johnson, Travis Fimmel, Ravi Aujla, Ray Haratian, Olivia-Mai Barrett, Rebecca Calder, Faizan Munawar Ibrahim, and Elnaaz Norouzi.
Now, a few years after its release,Kandaharranks second on Netflix’s Top 10 moviesin the United States for today, August 11. It ranks below onlyKPop Demon Hunters, and aboveGods of Egypt,Happy Gilmore 2,Marry Me,Journey 2: The Mysterious Island,My Oxford Year,Freelance,The 5th Wave, andMegamind.
What This Means For Kandahar
Though it ranks second on Netflix’s Top 10 movies today,Kandaharwas at number one yesterday, which is impressive considering thatKPop Demon Huntershas been the undisputed king of streaming. It’s ranked first or second for the past six weeks it’s been on the platform, and has becomeNetflix’s fourth most-watched movie of all time.
Kandaharis an unlikely candidate to briefly dethroneKPop Demon Hunters, considering it made little noise at the box office in 2023, grossing only $9.4 million, andreceived mostly negative reviews from critics. However, if you want nonstop action and Gerard Butler at the top of his game,Kandaharwon’t disappoint.
