An MCU Icon's Sleeper Sci-Fi Romance Movie Is a Streaming Hit

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Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Chris Evans as Captain America, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man, and Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk in The Avengers

In over three years at Collider, senior author Jake has now penned over 2500 articles covering a wide range of TV and film for the resources, lists, utilities, news, and interview teams. Alongside interviewing stars such as Selin Hizli, Rose Ayling-Ellis, and Chelsea Peretti, Jake was lucky enough to visit the set of Aardman and Netflix's Wallace and Gromit: A Vengeance Most Fowl in 2024, getting the chance to chat with four-time Academy Award winner Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham. Jake has also worked for other publications, including Agents of Fandom.

Although they had previously appeared in movies either uncredited or in separate scenes together, 2024 marked the first time MCU legend Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum shared the screen as leads. In Apple TV's Fly Me to the Moon, the pair of Hollywood mainstays portrayed a classic will-they/won't-they couple, although they failed to capture the attention of theatrical audiences, with the movie becoming one of the biggest flops of the year. Made for a reported $100 million, the film returned just over $38 million in global revenue.

However, as an Apple TV project, this failure would be softened should the film perform well on streaming and drive up subscription numbers. Ever since the movie's debut on the platform, it has regularly appeared in the upper echelons of the streaming charts. In fact, at the time of writing, Fly Me to the Moon is the tenth most-streamed movie on the streamer in the U.S. The rest of the list is packed with eye-catching titles, including Spike Lee's latest film, Highest 2 Lowest; Guy Ritchie's critically panned Fountain of Youth; the Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera-led The Lost Bus; and, the current chart topper, F1. For anyone yet to see Fly Me to the Moon, a synopsis reads:

"Starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, Fly Me to the Moon is a sharp, stylish romantic comedy set against the high-stakes backdrop of NASA's historic Apollo 11 moon landing. Brought in to fix NASA's public image, sparks fly in all directions as marketing maven Kelly Jones (Johansson) wreaks havoc on launch director Cole Davis's (Tatum) already difficult task. When the White House deems the mission too important to fail, the countdown truly begins...."

'Fly Me to the Moon' Earned Mixed Reviews From Critics

Although the movie earned an impressive 89% from audiences on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, its critics' score on the same site sits at just 66%, with the consensus on the site reading, "Sustained by Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum's screwball chemistry even when its plotting strains credulity, this throwback romance is a pleasant enough trip to the moon and back." In Jeff Ewing's review for Collider, he gave a strong 8/10 score and sided with audiences, saying, "At its core, Fly Me to the Moon is a thoroughly enjoyable, memorably novel rom-com that regularly surprises in a genre that often doesn’t, and we're all better for it."

Fly Me to the Moon is streaming on Apple TV now. Stay tuned to Collider for more streaming stories.