Anyone But You Shoots Straight To The Top Of Netflix Charts

"Anyone But You" became a surprise hit when it arrived in theaters back in December 2023. In an age where everyone is used to superhero movies and the odd horror flick doing well at the box office, surely a rom-com starring two lesser-known stars whose careers are only just starting to get going wasn't going to hit? But hit, it did. "Anyone But You" passed box office milestones, making an impressive $216 million worldwide on just a $25 million budget. Oh, and it was also based on a William Shakespeare play.

It might seem strange to think that a loose adaptation of the Bard's "Much Ado About Nothing," could be so surprisingly popular, but perhaps "Anyone But You" is ushering in a new era of cool Shakespeare adaptations, á la Leonardo DiCaprio with "Romeo + Juliet" back in the mid-'90s. Either way, the film's success certainly went a long way to furthering star Sydney Sweeney's career, which is good news in the wake of her dour nun horror pic "Immaculate" and the film that might just spell the end of superhero movies forever, "Madame Web." Meanwhile, Sweeney's "Anyone But You" co-star Glen Powell has been announced as the star of Edgar Wright's upcoming "The Running Man" remake, which is good news for the actor who has spent decades slowly building his way to superstardom. 

Now, with a bonafide box office hit on their résumés and newly-invigorated careers, Sweeney and Powell are set for major Hollywood success. But not before their rom-com finishes its pop culture domination by taking over the Netflix charts.

While hundreds of millions in box office receipts and movie stardom are all well and good, Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney were surely more eager to see how their film would fare on Netflix. I kid, but there's something to be said for success on the biggest streamer in the game. Netflix previously gave "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" widespread exposure and was arguably part of the reason its sequel, the dizzying, dazzling "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," was so successful in 2023. So, one final popularity boost via Netflix wasn't exactly going to hurt "Anyone But You."

The movie hit U.S. Netflix on April 23, 2024, and debuted at the top of the charts. According to FlixPatrol, a site that aggregates streaming viewership figures, "Anyone But You" is number one on Netflix as of April 24, 2024, and will likely stay there for some time. We've all been lost in the haze of Netflix doom-scrolling, stultified by the sheer volume of media at our fingertips. But the sexy rom-com with the girl from "Euphoria" and the handsome internet boyfriend everyone's swooning over? That offers an easy solution to our tyranny of choice problem.

This latest Netflix success follows what has surely been a lucrative digital sales and rental run for "Anyone But You." At the same time the film is dominating the Netflix charts, it's also at number four on the iTunes charts and has been hovering around the top of those rankings for weeks. Meanwhile "Anyone But You" also hit Netflix in a handful of other markets on April 19, and is currently number four in Bangladesh and Pakistan, and number five in India.

Prior to the "Anyone But You" release, you could have easily made the argument that it should have gone direct to streaming. Rom-coms of this sort haven't exactly proven to be big business at the box office in recent years, and while Sydney Sweeney certainly enjoys some "Euphoria"-propelled recognition, she was far from an established movie star. The same goes for Glen Powell, who has been in the industry for literally decades, beginning with his role as "Long-fingered Boy" in 2003's "Spy Kids 3." Powell has since appeared in several high-profile features, from "The Dark Knight Rises" to the satisfying trip to the danger zone that was "Top Gun: Maverick." But "Anyone But You" is the first film in which he stars that has done anything like these box office numbers.

So, prior to the film's release, if you'd heard about a new rom-com starring these two, you could have expected it to be a streaming movie. But as we've seen, not only has "Anyone But You" been a commercial success in theaters, it's had a significant cultural impact that may not have been possible had it debuted on a single streamer.

With that in mind, was there ever any doubt that when this movie finally hit Netflix it would do well? If anything, it's impressive that the film did the theatrical and digital rounds so successfully and still managed to dominate the streamer's charts as soon as it dropped. Add to that the fact that, as FlixPatrol shows, "Anyone But You" is near the top of the charts in the dozens of countries where it's available on Max, and the film seems like even more of a surprise hit than we initially realized.