Man on Fire

Netflix

Netflix has just premiered Man on Fire, a new adaptation of the 1980 novel that’s already been adapted into two movies, one in 1987, the other in 2004, directed by the late Tony Scott and starring Denzel Washington. And somehow, this Netflix version is reviewing better than the classic one. But there’s a weird catch.

This new version of Man on Fire is a seven-episode season (it’s not entirely clear if this is for sure going to be a miniseries or not) starring Wonder Man’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Special Forces mercenary, John Creasy, tasked with protecting a young girl (played by Dakota Fanning in the original, now by an older Billie Boullet).

So yes, as I said in the title, the Rotten Tomatoes score of the TV version is a good bit higher than the original Denzel feature, a 60% versus a very much rotten 39% with 166 critic reviews back then.

Wait, what?

As a critic who is actually on Rotten Tomatoes, I find myself defending it pretty often as, even if you dispute the exact score, very high ratings produce generally very good shows, where low ones are usually going to be pretty bad. There are splits at times that do make critics look wrong and yeah, I will admit this is certainly one of them.

2004’s Man on Fire is a great movie, and audiences agreed, giving that film an 89% audience score with over 250,000 reviews in. It has a 7.7/10 to the show’s 6.7 on IMDB. Audience scores for the show, however, are again above critics at 70%, though with not many reviews in yet.

I cannot believe that critics gave Man on Fire a 39% at the time. A great lead and supporting cast, a great director and a great novel to adapt. And it all worked together really well. Even though this was 21 years ago, I still remember seeing it in a theater and how cool it was, even if I’ve only seen it once. That’s how much it stayed with me.

Man on Fire debuted at #2 on Netflix, and whether it stays a miniseries or not probably depends on its performance. Netflix has consistently been searching for its answer to Amazon’s Reacher, and The Night Agent no longer seems to be it, with rapidly dropping viewership. Could John Creasy take up the mantle, even if that means going beyond the source material? Don’t rule it out, but also, star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is sticking around the MCU with a rare, greenlit season 2 for his series, Wonder Man, one of the best offerings in that whole universe, frankly. We’ll see how Man on Fire does.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.