20 Years Later, Matt Damon’s Forgotten Fantasy Flop Is a Sudden Streaming Hit

As excitement builds for director Christopher Nolan‘s The Odyssey, which recently debuted a handful of new stills, a forgotten entry on star Matt Damon‘s resume is witnessing a resurgence on streaming. The fantasy film The Brothers Grimm, which was originally released in 2005, made it to the top 10 of Netflix’s global viewership charts on November 16 and repeated the feat on November 17. Directed by Terry Gilliam and co-starring the late Oscar-winner Heath Ledger, The Brothers Grimm followed the titular historical figures on an entirely fictional adventure in 19th-century Europe. On their adventures, the brothers encounter an actual fantastical conundrum, forcing them to reconsider their skeptical ways.

According to FlixPatrol, the movie beat out Kathryn Bigelow‘s controversial recent thriller, A House of Dynamite, but trailed Guillermo del Toro‘s new epic, Frankenstein — a movie that the real Brothers Grimm would have likely enjoyed. Gilliam hadn’t made a movie since Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which debuted seven years prior. But he had already established himself as a legendary humorist thanks to his work with Monty Python, and as a top-tier genre filmmaker, especially after the success of 12 Monkeys and having directed a half-dozen fantasy movies already. However, The Brothers Grimm wasn’t exactly a hit with critics and audiences.

Terry Gilliam Clashed With the Weinsteins During Production

Produced on a reported budget of nearly $90 million, the movie managed to gross only around $105 million worldwide. It currently holds a 38% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus reads, “The Brothers Grimm is full of beautiful imagery, but the story is labored and less than enchanting.” The film survived a brutal production wrought with conflict between Gilliam and the notorious Weinstein brothers; they clashed over everything from the casting to the crew. In a retrospective piece, Collider’s Thomas Randolph wrote, “Rather than an odd but utterly fun story like it should have been, The Brothers Grimm has all the trappings of a Gilliam classic without any of the vitality or charm. The movie seems to build slowly to nothing, with a sort of wandering tone and oddly unrelatable characters.”

You can check the movie out for yourself on Netflix, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.