Joe and Anthony Russo recently said that Netflix was more akin to a tech company than a movie studio, which was an interesting thing to hear from the brains behind Extraction and The Gray Man, but they’ve got a point. It’s the brand that sells new projects to the masses at the end of the day, because in the case of Persuasion, it certainly ain’t the reviews.
To be fair, the knives were out for the latest adaptation of the beloved Jane Austen novel since the first trailer dropped, with literary purists positively fuming at the changes being made to the source material in order to give the story an anachronistic new spin that kept the the setting and characters largely the same, but gave things a distinctly modern sheen.
In the end, critics and audiences have been treating Persuasion with pretty much the exact levels of apathy you’d expect based on the first wave of reactions, with Carrie Cracknell’s feature currently holding a distinctly uninspiring Rotten Tomatoes score of just 36 percent. However, as a high-profile Netflix original landing on a Friday, it’s flown out of the blocks on the viewership charts.
As per FlixPatrol, Persuasion has instantly secured the number one spot in an impressive 37 countries around the world, while it’s managed a Top 10 berth in 85 nations total. That’s a solid return for a movie that’s been denigrated as relentlessly mediocre from start to finish, although Dakota Johnson is at least emerging unscathed after winning widespread praise for her central performance as Anne Elliot.