Gerard Butler's Forgotten Rom-Com Bomb Is a Streaming Hit 16 Years Later

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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.

January is always a quiet month in theaters, but, for fans of survival thrillers, this second weekend of 2026 is more exciting than usual. Making its theatrical debut is Greenland 2: Migration, Gerard Butler's new action sequel that sees him reprise his role as John Garrity alongside Sheriff Country star Morena Baccarin as his wife, Allison Garrity. Directed by Ric Roman Waugh, the film has a mountain to climb if it wants to reach the top of the box office charts against stiff competition, but it will certainly find its audience and hopefully perform well.

Ahead of the thriller sequel's release, another Butler film, albeit one from 16 years ago, is finding unlikely success in the streaming charts. At the time of writing, the Butler and Jennifer Aniston-led romantic comedy The Bounty Hunter is one of the ten most-streamed titles on Tubi in the U.S. Despite featuring two Hollywood mainstays in the lead roles, The Bounty Hunter was met by scathing critical reception, earning a damning 13% score on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes with the critics' consensus on the site reading, "Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston remain as attractive as ever, but The Bounty Hunter's formula script doesn't know what to do with them -- or the audience's attention." A synopsis for the movie reads:

"Milo Boyd (Gerard Butler), a down-on-his-luck bounty hunter, thinks he's seeing an upswing in fortune when he gets a call to bring in his bail-jumping ex-wife, a reporter named Nicole (Jennifer Aniston). Milo considers the job an easy payday, but Nicole quickly escapes to chase a lead on a murder case. The former spouses play an escalating game of one-upmanship, until they suddenly find themselves on the run for their lives."

'The Bounty Hunter' Redeemed Itself at the Box Office

Aniston and Butler's involvement might not have been enough to draw praise from critics, but it was at least enough to encourage millions to part with their cash and head to their local theater to catch this underwhelming rom-com. Made for a reported $45 million, the film managed to triple this investment with a global haul of $135.8 million. Split between $67.1 million in domestic revenue and a further $68.7 million from overseas markets, The Bounty Hunter finished 2010 just outside the top 50 highest-grossing movies of the year.

The Bounty Hunter is streaming now on Tubi. Make sure to stay tuned to Collider for more streaming stories.