Netflix viewers in disbelief as ‘awful’ 2017 Rotten Tomatoes flop rises to No 1

Netflix viewers are perplexed by the current movie ranking No 1 on the streamer’s Top 10 most-watched list.

While the platform’s weekly TV list is typically overrun by new releases, the movie list is less predictable and can vary between recent releases and classics.

This week, Tomas Alfredson’s 2017 debut, The Snowman – an adaptation of Norwegian author Jo Nesbø’s novel of the same name – is sitting in first place.

The Michael Fassbender-led drama was an instant commercial failure, earning just $6.7m (£5.4m) in the US against a production budget of $34m (£34.3m).

It was also despised by critics and currently sits at six per cent on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.

Half a decade later, Netflix viewers have given it a second life, leaving others both confused and amused.

“The Snowman is the perfect piece of s*** box office flop to go viral on Netflix a decade after it failed in theatres,” tweeted journalist Ben Dreyfuss. “I hope this does really well and people start hashtags demanding Netflix make sequels.”

“This is a genuinely awful film,” one responded, with a second jumping in to convince others to watch “this dumpster fire of a film”.

“Look if this is what gets Tomas Alfredson back in the game, i’m ready. i’ll watch it ten times,” another commented.

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Fassbender leads the murder mystery as detective Harry Hole, whose investigation into the murder of a young woman leads him to “The Snowman Killer”.

In order to lure the taunting sociopath from the shadows before he strikes again, Harry teams up with a brilliant new recruit (Rebecca Ferguson).

Critics branded it “stiff”, “impressively stupid” and “increasingly implausible”.