Keke Palmer & SZA's Unexpected Box Office Hit Is Finding New Fans On Netflix

One of this year's most unexpected theatrical hits has gone on to become a hit on streaming as well. "One of Them Days," a comedy from Sony Pictures starring Keke Palmer ("NOPE") and musical artist SZA recently made its way to Netflix and has been rapidly ascending the streamer's most-watched movies chart. Director Lawrence Lamont's latest is now right up there with the likes of "Den of Thieves 2: Pantera" and "Despicable Me 4" as one of the biggest movies on Netflix at the moment.

As of this writing, "One of Them Days" is sitting in the number two spot on Netflix's movie charts, just behind the Netflix original "The Life List," per FlixPatrol. What's important to note here is that the comedy only just recently arrived in the streamer, and it shot right near the top of the charts. It's almost as though the audience was eagerly awaiting this movie's arrival. There's actually a pretty good chance that's the case.

"One of Them Days" first hit theaters in January and became an unexpected hit for Sony. With minimal advertising, it nearly overtook Disney's "Mufasa: The Lion King" to earn the top spot over MLK weekend, opening to $11.8 million. It didn't hurt that the weekend's other big new release, Blumhouse's "Wolf Man," majorly disappointed in its debut at the box office that weekend. In any event, that set the movie up for a very nice run, having earned $51.5 million worldwide to date, with the vast majority of that money coming from ticket sales in North America.

That unexpected success at the box office put this movie on a lot of people's radar. Especially since word of mouth was especially good. Since Sony has an exclusive deal with Netflix, allowing for the studio's movies to debut on the streamer after their VOD runs, this one was always going to have a shot at a new life once people discovered it at home. It's just that all of the positive press from the movie's initial release teed it up for a bigger streaming debut than it might have had otherwise.

The movie centers on best friends and roommates Dreux (Keke Palmer) and Alyssa (SZA). They discover Alyssa's boyfriend has spent all of their rent money, and the duo is forced to go to extremes in a race against the clock to avoid eviction and keep their friendship intact. The cast also includes the likes of Lil Rel Howery ("Get Out") and Maude Apatow ("Euphoria").

As studios continue to toy with release models for movies, be it going directly to streaming or bringing them to VOD very shortly after hitting theaters, the continued, expected success of "One of Them Days" makes a strong case for at least some sort of theatrical release, as opposed to going direct-to-streaming. As we've seen time and time again, movies that play in theaters tend to do better on streaming, even if they aren't outright hits in theaters.

In this case, Sony scored a hit at the box office that has also become a hit on streaming. It's a win-win. Would it have caught everyone's attention if it had just been dumped directly on Netflix? Maybe not.

You can also grab "One of Them Days" on Blu-ray or DVD from Amazon.