Gerard Butler’s Critically Mauled 18% RT Disaster Movie Gets Second Chance on Streaming

Gerard Butler kicked off the year on the big screen with Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, but the year before his first outing as Big Nick, he headlined a sci-fi disaster movie that critics tore apart — and that film has just secured a fresh streaming home. Released in 2017, Geostorm tells the story of a scientist racing to stop a system of climate-control satellites when they suddenly turn against Earth. Geostorm is currently available on Tubi, but Paramount+ has confirmed it will join the platform beginning September 1.

Despite earning a meager 18% from critics and 35% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, the film managed to pull in $221 million worldwide on a $120 million budget. Behind the scenes, it was reported that Jerry Bruckheimer was called in to help salvage the movie during its final stages, after Warner Bros. rejected the original cut. Laeta Kalogridis and Danny Cannon were then brought in for extensive rewrites and reshoots, which added roughly $15 million more to the production costs.

The movie also marked the feature directorial debut of Dean Devlin, who followed it up with Bad Samaritan the following year, starring David Tennant and Kerry Condon. Before stepping behind the camera, Devlin made his name as a producer on major disaster blockbusters like Independence Day (with Will Smith) and later returned for the 2016 sequel, Independence Day: Resurgence, this time with Liam Hemsworth leading the cast.

How Bad Was ‘Geostorm’?

Well, that Rotten Tomatoes score should let you know it wasn’t the best. Even if this writer has a particular affinity for bad disaster movies, particularly “world-ending” ones, this one did struggle to live up to its plotline. Collider’s review rather aptly described it as “a movie that looked like it came out of the late-’90s in terms of plot, characters, stakes, and set pieces”, adding:

Geostorm is too safe for the people that want a fun blockbuster and too stale for people who want something different. I don’t need a bad film to constantly wink at the camera, but I was constantly surprised at how tame and humorless the whole film was. It’s a movie with zero charisma or personality. Every ounce of bombast is something you cherish because it’s when the film is actually interesting. Having Andy Garcia shout, “Because I’m the goddamn President of the United States!” is the film Geostorm should be throughout its runtime, but it appears terrified of being that movie. Instead, it comes off as a pale imitator of a blockbuster that has long since perished.

Geostorm will arrive on Paramount+ on September 1.

Geostorm

Release Date

October 20, 2017

Runtime

109minutes

Writers

Dean Devlin, Paul Guyot

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