Here’s a perfect example of a non-IP film that would have never had the kind of success that it did if it were released theatrically.
If there’s one movie, theatrical or streaming, that got people talking in 2023, with the exception of “Barbenheimer,” it was Sam Esmail’s “Leave the World Behind”. The apocalyptic thriller, an adaptation of Rumaan Alam’s novel, was the No. 1 movie in the U.S. on Netflix for almost three weeks.
Nielsen has just posted the top 2023 performing films on streaming, and guess what’s at #1? “Leave The World Behind”. It even beat out “Super Mario Bros Movie” (#2) and “Barbie.” “Leave the World Behind” is also Netflix’s 5th most popular film of all-time with 141.3 million views accumulated as of February 2024.
The film followed two families during a nationwide crisis that might possibly involve a massive cyberattack across the United States. The crisis is not entirely defined and the viewer is only given fragmented clues to piece it all together.
Esmail's film played like a realistic depiction of an imminent and coordinated societal collapse. That’s the thing about “Leave the World Behind”: it constantly fascinated, continuously exuded a feeling of unease. It was well-acted, well-crafted and said something interesting about the current state of the world, including, and especially, our overreliance to technology. In the film, civilization collapses and it rarely felt this real.
“Leave the World Behind” was met with polarized reactions, coming in from an assortment of political commentators, who speculated, accused, theorized what the film’s message might be. It certainly didn’t help that its producer was a certain Barack Obama. This was the first fiction film from former President’s Higher Ground production company.