With just two weeks to go until the new year, Netflix has found its biggest original movie hit of all of 2024. That would be the new film, Carry-On, a thriller starring Taron Egerton and Jason Bateman.
Netflix just revealed that the movie has racked up 42 million views, obviously the most-watched film of the week, but also its biggest film opening of the entire year with those numbers.
The thriller stars Egerton as a TSA agent blackmailed by Bateman’s mysterious “Traveler” into letting a dangerous package through airport security, and Egerton must figure out how to stop the plot while also keeping his girlfriend alive.
The film has reviewed well with critics, with an 84% on Rotten Tomatoes. It has a much worse 58% audience score, but having seen the film, I truly do not understand that at all. It’s really good, a claustrophobic, original thriller, the kind of which we rarely see these days, and certainly not ones this solid. Egerton and Bateman are both fantastic in this, and who knew Michael Bluth could be this level of menacing? Great work all around, and all this from the director of…Black Adam? Well, he did a great job here.
Carry-On
So, if the film is this level of successful, are we going to see a Carry-On 2? Spoilers follow for the film, so turn back now if you haven’t watched it. And you should definitely watch it.
This certainly did not seem like a movie designed to have a sequel. It is not based on some sort of book series so there’s no more source material to come. The film ends with Egerton’s Ethan saving the day and preventing the nerve gas attack. There’s then a time skip that shows him with his new baby and the reveal that he’s now a police officer. Meanwhile, Bateman’s Traveler gets melted by his own nerve gas, so he’s sure not coming back. There are other members of his team that survived, however, like the goth girl who gave Ethan the earpiece we see again near the end.
Given that Ethan is a cop now, obviously he could go on to stop more crimes in another movie, but “Carry-On 2” would no doubt not be about…another bomb in another carry-on, right? I mean, that’s kind of a one and done. But you can’t call it anything else. Despite it being a big hit, ultimately, I would be a little surprised if they did a sequel regardless.
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