Tom Hanks Has The #1 Movie On Netflix
A Man Called Otto starring Tom Hanks is the top streamed movie on Netflix.
Tom Hanks’ 2022 film A Man Called Otto is currently number one in the U.S. on Netflix. According to FlixPatrol, the movie is dominating at the streaming service, reflecting a positive response across the country. The Forrest Gump star is also continuing to show not only his appeal but his diversity, playing a grumpy old curmudgeon whose life is changed when a new family moves in next door.
A Man Called Otto stars Tom Hanks as the titular Otto in the second adaptation of the novel A Man Called Ove, written by Fredrik Backman. The previous film based on the book was made in Sweden in 2015 and retained the original title. This version is directed by Marc Forster, whose films include Stranger Than Fiction, World War Z, and Christopher Robin, from a screenplay by David Magee, screenwriter of Disney‘s remake of The Little Mermaid.
Tom Hanks’ costars in A Man Called Otto include Rachel Keller, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, and Mariana Treviño as the neighbor with whom he begins an unlikely friendship. This film marked the second collaboration for Magee and Forster, as the two had previously worked together on the 2004 Johnny Depp film Finding Neverland, about Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie. The movie hit theatres first, beginning with a limited release in December of 2022 before going wide in the U.S. in January of 2023, but it seems to have really hit its stride in streaming.
For A Man Called Otto, Tom Hanks went quite a distance from his role as Fred Rogers in 2019’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood to portray a character the film’s poster proclaims as “the grumpiest man in the world.” This week marks the film’s debut on Netflix, showing a strong opening that bodes well following a theatrical take of $109 million on a $50 million budget. Reviews are also strong for the comedy-drama, which currently has a 97% audience score and a less impressive but still fresh 69% critics consensus on Rotten Tomatoes.
It was announced that Tom Hanks would take the lead in A Man Called Otto back in 2017, while he was still on his way to playing Mister Rogers, but Forster was not announced as the film’s director until January of 2022, with production beginning that February. That same month, rights to the film were purchased by Sony Pictures for around $60 million. Production lasted around three months, wrapping in May of 2022.
A year later, Tom Hanks and A Man Called Otto are ruling Netflix and we think the film’s strong audience score tells us why it’s such a streaming success. Otto, a man dealing with grief after the loss of his wife, is a person in need of hope who finds redemption in connecting with his neighbors. In that sense, the film is of a similar spirit to Beautiful Day, which values the neighbor love endorsed by Rogers that is so deeply needed in our grumpy, curmudgeonly age where so many of us curl inward in isolation and hurt.
So, if you’re feeling a bit on the grouchy side, we hope you’ll watch A Man Called Otto and let a grumpy Tom Hanks lead you a little closer to the people around you.
