YA dystopian movie adaptations were a major trend during the 2010s. It all started with The Hunger Games movies in 2012, which, based on the books by Suzanne Collins, have made $3.3 billion at the box office and lived on even after the trend has died, with The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes becoming a hit in 2023 and a sequel, Sunrise on the Reaping, set for 2026.
Other examples that found success include the three Maze Runner movies, based on the books by James Dashner, which made $949 million at the box office, and the three Divergent movies, based on the books by Veronica Roth, which, despite being panned by critics, made $765 million at the box office.
Other examples include I Am Number Four (2011), Ender’s Game, The Host, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (all 2013), The Giver (2014), and The Darkest Minds (2018). Steven Spielberg even got in on the trend with Ready Player One (2018). However, it’s a different dystopian YA movie adaptation that has become a streaming hit.
The 5th Wave Becomes A Streaming Hit
The 5th Wave has become a streaming hit. Based on the book by Rick Yancey, the 2016 adaptation follows a series of increasingly devastating alien invasions that ravage Earth, leaving it in ruins. As a teenager flees through the chaos in a desperate attempt to rescue her younger brother, she must fight to survive the dreaded fifth wave.
The movie stars Chloë Grace Moretz, Nick Robinson, Ron Livingston, Maggie Siff, Alex Roe, Maria Bello, Maika Monroe, Zackary Arthur, Liev Schreiber, Tony Revolori, Talitha Bateman, Nadji Jeter, Alex MacNicoll, and Parker Wierling. It was directed by J Blakeson, with a script written by Susannah Grant, Akiva Goldsman, and Jeff Pinkner.
Now, nine years after its release, the YA dystopian movie has become a streaming hit. The 5th Wave ranks eighth on Netflix’s Top 10 movies in the United States for today, August 6. It ranks below KPop Demon Hunters, Happy Gilmore 2, My Oxford Year, Freelance, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, After the Sunset, and above Despicable Me 2 and Megamind.
Our Take On The 5th Wave’s Netflix Success
The 5th Wave is far from the best film produced by the dystopian YA trend of the 2010s, indicated by its dismal 17% score on Rotten Tomatoes from the critics. The film features lackluster visual effects and a story that feels cobbled together from other dystopian YA sci-fi movies, resulting in a weak and uninspired imitation. Rick Yancey’s book is much better, but the film falls flat and completely fails to capture the essence of its source material.
Source: Netflix
The 5th Wave
- Release Date
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January 22, 2016
- Runtime
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112minutes
- Director
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J Blakeson
