One Of 2024’s Biggest Box Office Flops Is Getting A Second Life On Netflix

This year has been plagued by some pretty big box office bombs, from “Joker: Folie à Deux” utterly failing to meet the expectations set up by its predecessor to “Borderlands” flopping harder than a middle-aged gamer playing against 12-year-olds on “Fortnite.” Now, at least one of the biggest box office flops of the year is getting a second life on Netflix.

“Harold and the Purple Crayon” is currently holding the number 5 spot on Netflix’s top 10 streaming charts. Directed by Carlos Saldanha, the film is a live-action sequel to Crockett Johnson’s beloved children’s book of the same name that centers on Harold (Zachary Levi), a man who can make anything come to life simply by drawing it, who had drawn himself in his favorite book as a kid. In the film, a grown Harold draws himself off the book and goes out to the physical world, where he learns that his magic crayon has more power than any person should have. Unsurprisingly, the crayon gets in the wrong hands, so it is up to Harold and some unlikely friends to save the day.

The film was released earlier this year to disastrous results. “Harold and the Purple Crayon” opened to just $6 million domestically, and went on to bomb its way to making just $26 million domestically out of a $40 million dollar budget. Still, that isn’t stopping Netflix users from turning this into an unlikely streaming hit.

“Harold and the Purple Crayon” was in development for nearly 15 years before it finally reached cinemas, with the project dating back to when “Shrek the Third” scribe Josh Klausner wrote a version of the script over a decade ago. Still, not even 15 years were enough to make this anything less than a disaster, one which earned a rather bad 27% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. Granted, this is not as bad as “Madame Web,” but that movie at least inspired some good memes, whereas “Harold and the Purple Crayon” made no impact whatsoever on the public consciousness.

And yet, no matter how badly the film performed, it is making waves on Netflix since the streamer has become a sort of second coming of the home video market, which used to provide an avenue for flops to actually make their money back. Now the money from home video is greatly diminished; the studio made some money by licensing the streaming rights to the film to Netflix, and Netflix potentially gains some value in the eyes of shareholders for being able to stream another studio-made Hollywood movie, regardless of its quality.

What makes “Harold and the Purple Crayon” becoming a hit on Netflix ironic is that Sony once tried to sell the film to the streamer outright. According to a Bloomberg report from earlier this year, Sony Pictures tried selling the distribution rights to the film to Netflix, fearing that “Harold and the Purple Crayon” wouldn’t hold a candle to “Despicable Me 4” and “Inside Out 2” if Sony released it at the box office. Netflix said no, the movie bombed theatrically, and now the film is a streaming hit.