Adam Driver’s new movie 65 may seem to be a movie that could be a whole lot of fun, with the actor’s character finding himself stranded on Earth 65 million years in the past where he must survive the elements and prehistoric beasts. However, both critics and audiences have failed to get on board the sci-fi adventure leading to the movie’s Rotten Tomatoes scores plummeting to 29% and 53% respectively.
65 sees Driver playing a space pilot named Mills, who is marooned on a prehistoric Earth after colliding with an unfamiliar planet. Joined by another survivor, Koa (Ariana Greenblatt), Mills must fight of dinosaurs as they seen the only thing that can potentially save them and send them home. Even with a generally praised performance from Driver, and Evil Dead’s Sam Raimi producing, the movie has not managed to quite capture the imagination of critics in particular. Having been delayed numerous times since its original release date of May 2022, it seems that for many the wait was not worth it.
For an action blockbuster style movie, words like “lazy,” “tired,” and “middling” being bandied around does not exactly elicit a positive word of mouth and that could be why the movie is only projected to take $9 million on its debut this weekend. Having had to compete with Scream VI, which in contrast has been pulling in good reviews and already has a large following, probably hasn’t helped 65 make its mark on the box office, but it seems that even without that competition the film would have struggled to gain traction.
A 65 Sequel Is Already Being Contemplated By the Movie’s Directors
While 65’s reviews and box office could kill off any thoughts of the movie getting a sequel, directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods have already briefly toyed with the idea of where the movie could go next. Although they jokingly responded to a question of whether they have plans for sequel by telling ComicBook.com that they have questioned whether it “could be called 64 or 66,” it seems unlikely that they will have to worry about coming up with more detailed plans anytime soon.
However, there is always the possibility of the movie getting a direct to streaming sequel, and Adam Driver could perhaps be happy to return for a sequel. He previously said on joining the cast of the movie:
“Well that it was so unique and that it was a big blend of a lot of different things. It was dinosaurs and laser guns and spaceships crashing, and it didn’t seem somewhat rare to get asked to do that, but that also is kind of ancillary to it being a movie that is really kind of a father-daughter movie. Anytime there's a big-scale movie, big-scale family movie that everyone can go to that doesn't let the spectacle get in the way of two characters that hopefully are three-dimensional, and it was about grief. I got it in the first thrust of COVID, and as I'm sure many people did, were obviously making the connections of what was going on in the world.”
65 is playing in theaters now.