Luc Besson’s production company EuropaCorp are the go-to guys for when you want to craft a mid-budget action movie with a recognizable star in the lead that will do solid if unspectacular business at the box office. Over the years, the formula has seen the outfit cast aging names like Liam Neeson, Kevin Costner and John Travolta in standard revenge flicks, but when Besson skewed younger and embraced sci-fi, it resulted in the biggest hit of his entire career in any capacity as either writer, director or producer.
Scarlett Johansson took the lead role in Lucy, a $40 million actioner where all sense of logic or plausibility is best left at the front door. The science at the center of the story is absolute nonsense, but when the exposition in question is being delivered in the syrupy tones of Morgan Freeman, you can let it slide. A bag of experimental drugs burst in the stomach of the titular mule, giving her superhuman abilities that allow her to access 100% of her brain’s potential.
Reviews were kind enough, even if everyone seemed to be in agreement that the third act went spectacularly off the rails, and Lucy was one of the biggest sleeper hits of 2014, raking in an impressive $463 million at the box office. As well as being the most successful effort of Besson’s career, it also ranks as Johansson’s biggest live-action movies that isn’t part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Lucy has turned out to be a sleeper hit on Netflix as well, having recently been added to the content library. The action-packed and visually dazzling sci-fi has been on the Top 10 chart almost all week now, in fact, and is currently the fourth most popular title on the streaming service across the world, proving that even all these years later, it’s still drawing in viewers in huge amounts.