Jake Gyllenhaal’s $52.3M Action Movie Lands On Netflix’s Global Chart 2 Years Later

Ambulance starring Jake Gyllenhaal ascends to the global Netflix top 10 chart 2 years after hitting theaters. Directed by Michael Bay, Ambulance stars Gyllenhaal as Danny Sharp, a thief who finds himself on the run in a stolen ambulance with his brother, Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), after a bank robbery goes wrong. Despite generally positive reviews from critics, the film was a box office disappointment, grossing only $52.3 million worldwide.

Now, new data from Netflix reveals that Ambulance ranks as the ninth most popular movie on the streamer globally for the week of August 12 – 18. The Bay film racked up an impressive 9.3 million hours viewed and 4.1 million views in total. Ambulance handily beats Trolls Band Together, but falls short of other titles like Ferdinand, Night School, and Inside the Mind of a Dog.

Why Ambulance Disappointed At The Box Office

Positive Reviews Didn’t Save The Michael Bay Movie

Ambulance marks Bay’s follow-up to 6 Underground in 2019 and Transformers: The Last Knight in 2017, neither of which were well received. The Ambulance reviews, however, generally praised the film as a fun bit of “Bayhem” with lots of action and an entertaining lead performance from Gyllenhaal. On Rotten Tomatoes, Ambulance currently enjoys a respectable 68% critics’ score and an impressive 88% audience score, two of Bay’s highest scores in years.

Unfortunately, however, this positive audience sentiment wasn’t reflected in Ambulance‘s box office performance as the film likely failed to break-even with its $40 million budget. One reason is certainly the lingering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Though the writing was on the wall before COVID, the pandemic largely made audiences far more picky about what movies are worth seeing in theaters, and the Bay action movie seemingly didn’t make the cut.

It’s notable, however, that the acclaimed Top Gun: Maverick hit theaters only one month later in 2022 and became a massive success, grossing $1.496 billion worldwide. With Ambulance, it’s certainly possible that Gyllenhaal alone isn’t enough to open a movie now, as neither Abdul-Mateen nor Eiza González are really household names. Bay, too, it seems, isn’t like Christopher Nolan in the sense that his name alone is a major audience draw. Though Ambulance may not have been a hit in theaters in 2022, the new Netflix data certainly suggests that it’s finding its audience now.

Source: Netflix

Ambulance

3.0

Michael Bay returns to the director’s chair with Ambulance, an action-thriller film that follows siblings Danny and Will Sharp in a high-stakes heist that goes terribly wrong. When Afghanistan veteran Will’s wife needs medical treatment they can’t afford, Will seeks help from his criminal-record-toting brother, Danny. To help him, Danny offers him the chance to join him on the biggest heist of his life, which would take care of his wife and more. But when the heist goes wrong, the two find themselves hijacking an ambulance with a wounded officer and a stellar EMT as they attempt to fend off law enforcement in a bombastic unyielding chase across Los Angeles.

Release Date

April 8, 2022

Studio(s)

Universal Pictures

Distributor(s)

Universal Pictures

Writers

Chris Fedak

Cast

Cedric Sanders , Yahya Abdul-Mateen II , Wale Folarin , Olivia Stambouliah , Remi Adeleke , Eiza Gonzalez , Jesse Garcia , Jessica Capshaw , Jackson White , Colin Woodell , Victor Gojcaj , Jake Gyllenhaal , A Martinez , Moses Ingram , Keir O’Donnell , Garret Dillahunt , Devan Chandler Long

Runtime

136 minutes

Budget

$40 million

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