Every week, Netflix unveils its Top 10 lists for the week before, ranking TV shows and movies by viewership. As someone who covers streaming content (and also just watches a lot of TV), I keep an eye on the titles that come and go, and am always curious what hits and what doesn't. Last week, John Mulaney's Netflix animated series Big Mouth premiered a new season, and his Netflix talk show Everybody's Live with John Mulaney aired its season finale, so I was curious if either would crack the Netflix Top 10.
Neither did, but ironically, a third Mulaney-involved title — Puss In Boots: The Last Wish — was in the No. 5 spot on the Netflix movie chart to my surprise, mostly because I forgot that he was even in it. (Sure, Puss In Boots: The Last Wish also stars Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Harvey Guillen and Florence Pugh, but for the sake of argument, today it's a John Mulaney film.)
Mulaney has been incredibly busy for the past few years, and it feels like the past two months reached peak Mulaney saturation: the eighth and final season of Big Mouth premiered on May 23, while his talk show Everybody's Live with John Mulaney aired its season finale on May 28 after running for 12 truly weird and unpredictable weeks. (For weeks, the show teased that the finale would feature Mulaney brawling with three 14-year-old boys. And yes, that fight did happen, rest assured no children were harmed.)
Between both of his Netflix shows and recent appearances on Peacock's Poker Face and SNL 50, I think that his ubiquity is why I had forgotten all about his role as Jack Horner, the main villain in Puss In Boots: The Last Wish. It's certainly not because the role wasn't memorable, he actually stole every scene he was in as the narcissistic nursery rhyme character with an inferiority complex.
Puss In Boots: The Last Wish, which debuted in theaters in 2022, is not actually available on Netflix in the U.S., which makes it even more impressive that it's dominating the Global Top 10 based on its popularity in Central and South America, where it peaked at No. 1 and has remained in the Top 10 film in dozens of countries for five weeks.
Once I remembered Mulaney's pivotal role in the movie, I started to wonder, is this guy secretly Netflix's biggest star? He seems to have been given creative carte blanche on his talk shows and stand-up specials and, while his comedy can be niche, he also stars in projects with global appeal, so he very well could be. The streamer has deals with bigger names like Adam Sandler, Tyler Perry and Millie Bobby Brown, but I think Mulaney may be their ringer. He also starred in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which was only just removed from Netflix in April, he has seven comedy specials on the platform, and he pops up in everything from Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee to this month's Conan O'Brien's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor special.
He's in so many things that somehow they managed to overshadow The Last Wish in my mind. But the film, which has made almost $500 million globally, is hardly under the radar. Maybe while it remains in the Top 10, it will give him a chance to take a well-deserved break from Netflix and just chill. At least for a little while, before he starts plotting who to grapple on season 2 of Everybody's Live.
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