After years of being involved in critically panned projects, the wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is finally finding acclaim following the festival premiere of The Smashing Machine. Both Johnson’s and Emily Blunt‘s performances, as well as the work of the film’s director, Benny Safdie, are already being touted for Oscar nominations as awards season beckons, with this turning of a new page in Johnson’s career finally rewarding those who had long defended his on-screen ability.

Ahead of the early October theatrical release of The Smashing Machine, one of Johnson’s more underrated efforts, the 2014 fantasy flick Hercules, is back in the streaming charts. At the time of writing, Hercules is one of the ten most-streamed movies on the free streaming site Tubi in the US. The film joins an eye-catching selection of other titles currently in the Tubi top 10, including the likes of Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element, Eddie Murphy‘s comedy classic Coming to America, Martin Scorsese’s beloved Goodfellas, the Al Pacino-led Scarface, and Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal‘s sci-fi effort, Life. Speaking back in 2014 about the movie with Collider, Johnson said:

“Well, there had been a few iterations in the past of Hercules. The idea was to take the spirit of the graphic novel, which we liked, and then create a script and a story based on that that still gave a very unique twist on the story of Hercules. But we also pay attention, respect and homage to the mythology of Hercules as it relates to the 12 Labors and the group that Hercules had around him, the anguish that he had to go through with the death of his family and things like that. So the goal was to strike a nice balance between, again, a unique twist on the story, and yet at the same time make sure that we still paid homage to the mythology of Hercules.”

How Did ‘Hercules’ Perform at the Box Office?

A failure with critics, Hercules has just 58% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus reading, “Hercules has Brett Ratner behind the cameras and Dwayne Johnson rocking the loincloth — and delivers exactly what any reasonable person reading that description might expect.” Despite critical disappointment, could the film find success at the box office? The answer is yes, although only just, managing to return 2.4 times its reported $100 million production budget. With a global haul of $243 million, split between a domestic total of $73 million and a further $170 million from overseas markets, Hercules proved fairly popular with moviegoers, even finishing the year as the 35th highest-grossing movie worldwide.

Hercules is streaming on Tubi now.

Release Date

July 25, 2014

Runtime

98 Minutes

Writers

Ryan J. Condal, Evan Spiliotopoulos