Gerard Butler's 2017 Sci-Fi Disaster Movie Is A Streaming Hit On Netflix

Gerard Butler might not be what you'd call an A-list star these days, but he's actually appeared in some solid stuff in recent years. The Scottish actor's '90s throwback "Plane" was a breath of fresh air in 2023, and /Film's Chris Evangelista dubbed 2025's "Den of Thieves 2: Pantera" a "triumph of dudes rock cinema." But none of this can erase the fact that Butler has starred in his fair share of duds, though if it's any consolation for him, the Netflix subscribers aren't letting something as bothersome as quality get in the way of streaming his films.

Back in 2017, Butler starred in "Geostorm," which on its surface was a generic disaster movie offering very little to entice audiences. But in reality it was even worse. The film was directed, co-written, and co-produced by "Independence Day" and "Godzilla" (1998) producer Dean Devlin, which you might think would work in its favor. Unfortunately, Devlin's feature directorial debut was not quite the delightful '90s throwback that "Plane" would turn out to be.

The film stars Butler as Jake Lawson, a satellite designer who helps engineer a network of satellites in order to control the climate and protect Earth from natural disasters. Sadly, Lawson's satellites start to malfunction and attack the planet, setting up a race against the clock as Lawson tries to figure out what in the heck is going on before a global geo storm devastates Earth. Jim Sturgess, Abbie Cornish, Ed Harris, and Andy García, also star.

Sounds like some ridiculous fun at the movies, doesn't it? But it wasn't, and critics weren't very kind to "Geostorm." Now, though, Netflix users are giving the movie the reprieve it almost certainly doesn't deserve, sending the film into the most-watched movie charts and proving that our ultimate undoing will arrive by our own hand and not some global disaster.

Gerard Butler can make a darn good disaster movie when he wants to. His 2020 effort "Greenland" was a disaster movie unlike any other, even though there are several disaster movies like "Greenland" that are definitely worth a watch. Unfortunately, "Geostorm" isn't one of them. For whatever reason, though, that hasn't stopped Netflixers streaming this one in earnest, sending Butler's 2017 misfire into the charts stateside and surely bringing us one step closer to the actual fall of humanity.

"Geostorm" hit Netflix on April 1, 2025 and immediately entered the charts the following day, as per streaming viewership tracker FlixPatrol. The forgotten disaster flick debuted in the U.S. film charts at number four, which is a pretty strong start for a movie that The Hollywood Reporter described as "Big, dumb and boring."

It's early days for "Geostorm" on Netflix, but we may well see this one continue to climb the charts as the week goes on. Meanwhile Butler's much better "Den of Thieves 2" is also in the Netflix rankings, but has slipped four places to number eight as of April 2, 2025. At least that clears the way for "Geostorm" to make a run for the top spot. The question is, should it be allowed to?

"Geostorm" has an 18% score on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 3.4 out of 10. Even more disastrous than a global geo storm, the film only garnered a 5% RT score among the so-called "top critics," who absolutely savaged the film upon its release. To put that into perspective, only one of the 20 "top critics" included in RT's aggregation actually thought "Geostorm" was good and even then, the Tribune News service's Rick Bentley writes that "director Dean Devlin and co-writer Paul Guyot ... have taken a passable action film and buried it under a tsunami of political muck" (though he also states that Butler "makes the space station action work.") Alas, Bentley is a lone voice amid a sea of reviewers decrying "Geostorm" as "transcendent idiocy," to quote ScreenCrush's Matt Singer.

"Chaotically stupid," "an hour and a half of dramatic monotony," and an "assault" on "the dignity of several fine actors." This are just a smattering of quotes from the "Geostorm" reviews, which if you're considering joining in on the Netflix rewatch should help you decide between this or Keke Palmer and SZA's unexpected box office hit, which is currently at number two on Netflix. Either that or you can sample the current number one, Netflix original "The Life List," which has a much better 47% RT score. This is the state of play on Netflix right now, where a 47-percenter is probably a better bet than one of the hot new arrivals on the charts. As such, you're probably better off heading over to Hulu, where not only is Timothée Chalamet's Oscar-nominated Bob Dylan biopic finding new fans, you can also see Best Picture winner "Anora" which recently took over the charts.