A 2024 M. Night Shyamalan movie has become a global-level streaming success just months after its theatrical release. Shyalaman is a writer and director whose work has become more or less synonymous with explosive plot twists. His breakout came with the release of the smash hit supernatural horror movie The Sixth Sense in 1999. In addition to grossing $672.8 million against its $40 million budget, the movie earned six Academy Awards nominations, including two for Shyamalan himself (for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay).
M. Night Shyamalan movies have had many ups and downs since 1999. Following the highs of his post-Sixth Sense movies Unbreakable and Signs, he entered a critical fallow period between 2006’s Lady in the Water and 2013’s After Earth, a stretch that also included the notoriously maligned тιтles The Last Airbender and The Happening. In the mid-2010s, he began rehabilitating his image with better-received modern thrillers such as 2015’s The Visit, 2016’s Split, 2023’s Knock at the Cabin, and his 2024 movie that is now a streaming success.
Trap Is Charting On Netflix
The Shyamalan Movie Debuted In August 2024
Trap has now become a Netflix success. The 2024 M. Night Shyamalan movie starred Josh Hartnett as doting father Cooper, who brings his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to a pop concert, only to discover that it is an elaborate sting operation designed to capture a serial killer: him. The Trap cast also includes Saleka Night Shyamalan, Alison Pill, Hayley Mills, and Jonathan Langdon. Overall, it was a middling success in theaters, grossing $83.6 million against its reported budget of $30 million, which likely placed its break-even point somewhere around $75 million.
Critics gave Trap a 57% score on Rotten Tomatoes while audiences gave it 65%.
Netflix has now calculated their global Top 10 chart of the most-watched English-language movies for the week of March 10 through 16. Thanks to 6.7 million viewers worldwide accumulating a total of 11.8 million viewing hours, Trap has debuted at No. 4 on the chart, behind fellow 2024 theatrical release Kraven the Hunter and the Netflix original movies Plankton: The Movie and The Electric State. See the full chart below:
|
# |
тιтle |
Viewers |
|---|---|---|
|
1 |
The Electric State (2025) |
25.2 million |
|
2 |
Plankton: The Movie (2025) |
13.4 million |
|
3 |
Kraven the Hunter (2024) |
7.1 million |
|
4 |
Trap (2024) |
6.7 million |
|
5 |
Despicable Me 4 (2024) |
6.1 million |
|
6 |
IF (2024) |
5.7 million |
|
7 |
Bee Movie (2007) |
4.3 million |
|
8 |
CHAOS: The Manson Murders (2025) |
3.3 million |
|
9 |
The Boss Baby (2017) |
3.3 million |
|
10 |
The Croods (2013) |
3.3 million |
The Shyamalan thriller has managed this success in spite of the fact that it is only streaming in the United States at the time of writing, and is thus not having its position boosted by viewers from other regions.
What This Means For Trap
Streaming Could Provide It With A Huge Boost
Although Trap reviews were middling, it performed well in theaters, but streaming may be the true place where the M. Night Shyamalan thriller can thrive. The movie competing at a global level over the course of a single week in spite of only being available in one region speaks to the fact that it has already found a way to strongly connect with a wide at-home audience, which could help it become an even bigger success overall. To compare, Plankton, which only had roughly twice as many viewers, is currently in the Top 10 in eight times as many countries.
Source: Netflix
