Murder Mystery may have had a record opening weekend for Netflix, but many critics and viewers were not terribly kind. Director Kyle Newacheck checked out the critics' reviews for the Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston film. He was confused by some of the criticism, especially when it was focused on things that had nothing to do with the specific movie.
Here's what he said when I asked if it bothered him that critics weren't that fond of Murder Mystery.
I mean, it bothers me, you know, but ultimately -- well it doesn't bother me, I'm kind of like, well that's fine. I mean I noticed that a lot of the critics were kind of critiquing outside of the movie in a way. Or they're like critiquing the fact that Sandler makes a ton of movies rather than just the movie itself. So I thought that was kind of weird. But ultimately my goal as a child, or when I when I first knew I wanted to be in entertainment, was to get eyes on what I was making and to hopefully get people to forget about their lives and just be kind of bonding over some really cool adventure or really cool funny movie or moment in something.
The 2019 Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston comedy currently has a 45% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, although from only 62 critics, and an audience score of 38%, although from only 306 users. If you look at all of Sandler's movies on Rotten Tomatoes, they do tend to get lower scores. The Ridiculous 6 is sitting at a rare 0%, with a film like The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) as an exception with 93% fresh. Murder Mystery's Metascore is a low 38, from 19 critics, with a 5.6/10 score from Metacritic users. But the movie has an OK 6.0 rating from more than 57,000 users on IMDb. Most viewers don't rate movies at all, and it's fair to think millions of people just watched and enjoyed Murder Mystery without feeling the need to give it a number.
It's Netflix's record opening weekend that Murder Mystery director Kyle Newacheck really cares about, and the idea that 31 million accounts viewed the movie over the first three days. (Netflix reportedly counts a view after an account watches 70 percent of the movie's total runtime.) There's was even talk that Murder Mystery might've made a killing at the box office, had it opened in theaters.
Here's more from the Los Angeles Film School graduate and Game Over, Man! director on the reaction to Murder Mystery:
So, whatever the critics say, that's totally cool, everybody can have their opinion. But for me it was like 31 million people watched it in three days, and that's not even people, that's 31 million accounts. So I don't know if families sat around and watched the movie together, I can only assume so. To me, that makes me very happy that there was something people could enjoy. There was a ride that they could enjoy for an hour and 37 minutes. That's all that really matters.
Yep. I liked it well enough myself, and that's all that matters to me too. It was easy, breezy, glamorous fun. Since Murder Mystery did have a record opening weekend for Netflix, and since the movie seemed to leave the door open for more adventures from Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston's Nick and Audrey Spitz, there's now talk of a potential sequel. Check out what Kyle Newacheck said about that.
In the meantime, fans can stream Murder Mystery now on Netflix.
