Tobey Maguire Produced a Forgotten Sci-Fi Movie That Netflix Doesn’t Want Some of Its Subscribers To See

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Chloe Grace Moretz as Cassie Sullivan and Alex Roe as Evan Walker taking cover behind a tree in a forest in 'The 5th Wave'

Rahul Malhotra is a Weekend News Writer for Collider. From Francois Ozon to David Fincher, he'll watch anything once.

He has been writing for Collider for over two years, and has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal to introduce audiences to a whole new world of cinema.

Swing and a miss > measured victory. Also, #JusticeForHan. (He/Him).

Released during the peak of the YA era, shortly after the success of The Twilight Saga, the science-fiction film The 5th Wave came and went without leaving much of a cultural impact. The film was directed by J. Blakeson, and based on a book by Rick Yancey. This was also the era that saw films such as The Host, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, and Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant. The movie earned negative reviews from critics, but did sufficiently well at the box office. It's now available to stream on Netflix, but only for subscribers who haven't opted for the ad-supported tier.

Around 145 titles have been barred by the streamer this month for subscribers to its ad-supported tier, mainly due to rights issues. The 5th Wave is one of them. Starring Chloë Grace Moretz as a teenager caught in the middle of an alien invasion, the movie also features Nick Robinson, Ron Livingston, Maria Bello, Maika Monroe, and Liev Schreiber. The 5th Wave grossed over $100 million at the global box office, against a reported budget of more than $50 million. The movie was co-produced by Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire, and was supposed to spawn a trilogy. However, it turned out to be more like the Divergent series than the Maze Runner franchise. The 5th Wave is now sitting at a terrible 17% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics' consensus reads, "With unimpressive effects and plot points seemingly pieced together from previous dystopian YA sci-fi films, The 5th Wave ends up feeling like more of a limp, derivative wriggle."

Chloë Grace Moretz Has Been Doing a Lot of Voice Work Recently

Director Blakeson had broken out with the British thriller The Disappearance of Alice Creed, which was headlined by Gemma Arterton. He went on to direct the dark comedy I Care a Lot, starring Rosamund Pike. Moretz went on to lead a few more sci-fi films, such as Shadow in the Cloud and Mother/Android. She also voiced Wednesday Addams in the animated film The Addams Family and its sequel, The Addams Family 2. More recently, she voiced the lead character in the acclaimed Netflix animated film Nimona.