10 cinema releases that should have been banished to streaming purgatory
At its best, streaming allows lower-budget indie movies the chance to be seen by a much wider audience than if they were released in cinemas. In this regard, it’s a new frontier for indie filmmakers who want to make headway in Hollywood, and it’s a viable alternative to cinema distribution.
At its worst, though, streaming is a wasteland for big-budget Netflix mockbusters that seem like poor imitations of the films we used to see weekly in the cinema. There are also so many streaming services and so many films released at all times that it often seems like certain movies are just thrown into the abyss. In this situation, it’s incredibly hard to break through the noise.
However, what of the movies that have been theatrically released in the last decade that, in hindsight, probably should have been relegated to streaming for the benefit of audiences and the studios who made them? Every year, some truly baffling movies find theatrical distribution, while other more deserving efforts are never heard from again.
This list will spotlight ten cinema releases that were so bad, so inept, and so poorly received that they should have been banished to streaming purgatory.
10 movies that should have gone straight to streaming:
‘Holmes & Watson’ (Etan Cohen, 2018)
To fans of Step Brothers and Talladega Nights, the idea of Will Ferrell and John C Reilly playing a comedy version of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson must have sounded like Manna from Heaven. After all, there was a time when the improvisational, juvenile, manic comic stylings of that pairing were guaranteed to make hundreds of millions at the box office and pick up solid reviews to boot.
Enter Holmes & Watson, the movie ending the Ferrell/Reilly gold rush by flopping so hard and being so widely derided that the two stars would never dream of returning to the well again. A truly dreadful film; it was filled with jokes so old hat and hackneyed that they would make a small child roll their eyes.
Ultimately, did Holmes & Watson deserve to make it to the cinema? No. Should it have been quietly shuffled onto streaming and never spoken of again? Yes.
‘Borderlands’ (Eli Roth, 2024)
As soon as the trailer for Eli Roth’s Borderlands was released, two questions must have lodged in the viewers’ brains. Firstly, what possessed Cate Blanchett to sign up for this gaudily coloured CGI monstrosity? Secondly, why did it look so much like a Temu Guardians of the Galaxy? Hell, it couldn’t have tried any harder to remind audiences of James Gunn’s beloved Marvel franchise, but all that did was make it look lame by comparison.
Unsurprisingly, the world wasn’t fooled into thinking Borderlands would repeat the trick of Guardians of the Galaxy, and it resolved to stay far, far away. On a rumoured budget north of $100million, Borderlands returned only $33m, and its reviews were harrowing enough to make everyone involved wish it had never been greenlit.
Overall, Borderlands may have fared better on Netflix because it belonged firmly to the category of ‘mockbuster’ that the streaming giant is so fond of making. In fact, we’d bet that if it had been a Netflix joint, there would have been instant reports about it breaking viewing records, even though you’d be hard-pressed to speak to anyone in real life who would admit to having seen it.
‘Reminiscence’ (Lisa Joy, 2021)
Reminiscence looked like it had all the tools to be a genuinely excellent science-fiction mystery. The trailer was glossy and boasted lots of shots of a partially flooded near-future Miami. In it, Hugh Jackman plays a tortured gumshoe using a futuristic gizmo to view other people’s memories and find his missing lover.
The movie bore more than a passing resemblance to the work of Christopher Nolan, which made sense considering Lisa Joy, his sister-in-law, directed it. Unfortunately, though, the Westworld co-creator came a cropper with Reminiscence, which squandered all the potential of its unique premise by constantly reminding its audience of other, better films.
When Reminiscence was released in cinemas simultaneously with a release on HBO Max, Warner Bros likely thought it would get the best of both worlds in an uncertain Covid-afflicted market. In the end, though, it was resolutely ignored in cinemas and on streaming before disappearing without a trace.
‘The War with Grandpa’ (Tim Hill, 2020)
Astonishingly, The War with Grandpa made $43.4m at the box office—or at least, that’s what the official figures claim. It’s hard to imagine enough people paying to see this misfiring Robert De Niro ‘comedy’, but the numbers speak for themselves. Stranger still, the film was shot in 2017 and then shelved for three years, a delay that usually spells disaster for a release.
Regardless, The War with Grandpa shouldn’t have been granted entry into any cinemas anywhere in the world. De Niro had made a ton of terrible movies in recent years, with titles that all blur together in a weird generic melange. Equally, though, he’s also made so many disastrous comedies in his time that you may wonder why it’s so upsetting that this one escaped the streaming wasteland.
We’ll tell you why, though: films like The War with Grandpa making it to cinema screens ensure that it will be slightly more remembered than the barrage of De Niro efforts that show up on the likes of Tubi, Paramount+, and Prime Video. The benefit of those films immediately falling into the streaming abyss is that they can be immediately forgotten, unlike The War with Grandpa, which has that bizarre box office tally that must be acknowledged.
‘Assassin Club’ (Camille Delamarre, 2023)
In the wake of the John Wick franchise busting blocks worldwide, cinematic assassins have been crawling out of the woodwork again. Naturally, though, as Hollywood has tried its level best to milk as much money as possible out of things that seem vaguely Wick-adjacent, there hasn’t been a whole lot of attention given to quality control. Hence, we get things like Assassin Club.
When you watch Assassin Club, you almost instantly realise it does not belong on a big screen. Despite starring Henry Golding and Noomi Rapace, two fairly reputable names, it can’t shake the vague whiff of being a cheap European knockoff. In truth, it’s incredible that it even managed to scramble together a laughable $188,292 at the box office.
It’s hard to argue that a movie like Assassin Club would have benefitted from going straight to streaming. Equally, though, it could also benefit from being memory-holed by anyone who had the misfortune of seeing it.
‘Cabin Fever’ (Travis Zariwny, 2016)
Was anyone asking for a Cabin Fever remake in 2016? We’d argue no, of course not – but that wasn’t going to stop them from making one. So, only 14 years after Eli Roth’s low-budget breakthrough gorefest came out in 2002, and after two sequels had already been made, Cabin Fever was rebooted. And nobody cared.
When IFC Midnight acquired the rights for the film, it scheduled it for a limited theatrical release alongside video on demand. With box office takings of only $39,065, though, either that release was limited to a handful of cinemas – or interest in the remake was even lower than anyone could have anticipated.
This movie, as dreadful as it was, should never have come anywhere near a cinema. Instead, if it had been released directly on Shudder, the premium horror streaming service, it would surely have found a more eager audience to fire it up on a Friday night and enjoy it for what it was.
‘Hellboy: The Crooked Man’ (Brian Taylor, 2024)
In truth, either one of the recently attempted Hellboy reboots could have been included in this list. We’ve gone for the 2024 version – Hellboy: The Crooked Man – over David Harbour’s ill-fated 2019 incarnation, though, for one simple reason: it looks like a mistake was made that allowed it to escape streaming purgatory in the first place. At least the Harbour Hellboy had a sizeable budget and some star power. It was still godawful, but it felt more like a movie movie than this glorified TV pilot.
That’s the strangest thing about Hellboy: The Crooked Man, honestly. We sat in the cinema watching the film and were baffled the entire time about how it wasn’t the first episode of a new Netflix or SyFy Channel series. The cast of unknowns, the clearly compromised budget, the contained nature of the story, all of these things screaming “streaming TV series that may get better as it goes along.”
As it was, instead of a TV pilot with room for future improvement, Hellboy: The Crooked Man was one of the more curious cinema experiences we’ve had in many a year. It wasn’t terrible, per se, but in no way was it good. It was just hellishly confusing.
‘The Kitchen’ (Andrea Berloff, 2019)
In many ways, The Kitchen already felt like a relic of a bygone era in 2019—and not just because it was a period piece set in the ’70s. You see, this kind of mid-budget, star-driven crime drama is extremely rare in modern Hollywood, with the vast majority of these kinds of stories being told on prestige TV.
The Kitchen’s cast – which included Melissa McCarthy, Elisabeth Moss, Domhnall Gleeson, and Tiffany Haddish – was strong, and the source material of a gritty DC Vertigo crime comic was also top-notch. Sadly, though, it was dead on arrival at the box office and was such a mediocre picture that it didn’t do a whole lot to suggest mid-budget crime dramas were going to make a theatrical comeback anytime soon.
Would this have found a bigger audience if it had debuted on HBO Max? Maybe. But it’s doubtful many people would have remembered much about even a day or two after they watched it.
‘Collide’ (Eran Creevy, 2017)
If I told you that an action movie starring Nicholas Hoult, Felicity Jones, Anthony Hopkins, and Ben Kingsley was about to be released, you’d be intrigued, right? That’s a pretty darn good cast of British talent, with Hoult bringing the leading man chops while, presumably, Hopkins and Kingsley lend gravitas and/or scenery-chewing villainy. Heck, Jones isn’t exactly known for starring in action fare, so that’s intriguing in and of itself.
Unfortunately, though, Collide isn’t an upcoming film that will soon turn up in your local multiplex. Instead, it’s a forgotten ‘thriller’ that was first announced in 2013, shot in 2014, and subsequently sat on a shelf for three years.
In truth, it’s not hard to see why because there is nothing about the movie that sets it apart from any of the low-rent action dreck that is released every week on Netflix. In fact, it’s shocking that it even received enough of a theatrical release to make $6.8m.
‘Renfield’ (Chris McKay, 2023)
It may seem like we’re picking on poor Nicholas Hoult with these last two entries, but it’s really just a coincidence that he’s been part of two movies that should have been instantly banished to screening purgatory. The guy is still one of the best talents working today, and he definitely levelled up in 2024/25. However, Renfield, man. Come on. Renfield sucked. Pun not intended.
Renfield seemingly had everything going for it. A fun premise that cleverly inverted the classic Dracula story; Nicolas Cage returning to his first studio blockbuster in more than a decade to play Count Dracula himself; comic relief from the ubiquitous Awkwafina; and energetic direction from The Lego Batman Movie’s Chris McKay. Surely, this would be a fun time at the movies, if nothing else?
Well, nope. In the end, Renfield just didn’t work on any level, and audiences must have felt the stink from a mile off. It made less than half its budget back at the box office, and reviews were middling despite the presence of both Hoult and a resurgent Cage. It’s hard not to think this should have just turned up on Amazon Prime Video on a Thursday night, never to be heard from again.
