Published Aug 25, 2026, 9:00 AM EDT
Growing up around performers, storytelling was always central to Emma's life. Add in a nerdy older brother who introduced her to Marvel at far too young an age, and her love for entertainment led her to pursue a Journalism degree at Indiana University, where she discovered her passion for entertainment reporting. She spent nearly one year in Los Angeles covering industry stories and fully immersing herself in the world of entertainment media.
Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal have both been on blockbuster runs lately, with Damon leading Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and Pascal joining the MCU as Reed Richards and bringing The Mandalorian's Din Djarin to the big screen. But nearly a decade before these roles, the two stars teamed up for a very different kind of movie. The ambitious fantasy epic sparked controversy before it even reached U.S. theaters, and now, years later, their unlikely team-up is finding another audience on streaming.
The Great Wall is Zhang Yimou’s fantasy action epic starring Damon as European mercenary William Garin and Pascal as his companion, Pero Tovar. While searching for gunpowder in China, the pair encounter the Nameless Order, an elite military force defending the Great Wall from monstrous creatures known as the Tao Tei.
The Great Wall Controversy Explained
Almost 10 years after its original release, The Great Wall is back in Netflix’s U.S. Top 10, now reaching #6 on the movie chart. The Great Wall became controversial before audiences even saw the finished movie, with Damon’s casting at the center of the backlash. The first trailer came with accusations of whitewashing and criticism over a white Hollywood star seemingly taking center stage in a blockbuster set in ancient China. Zhang defended the casting, explaining that William was always conceived as a European character rather than a role originally written for a Chinese actor.
Damon later revealed that he had his own frustrations while making The Great Wall, admitting that he realized during production that the movie wasn't working as he had hoped. The finished film also struggled with critics, despite a cast that included Jing Tian, Andy Lau, Willem Dafoe, and Pascal. The Great Wall currently holds a 36% critics' score and 42% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
How The Great Wall Found Redemption On Streaming
The Great Wall may have struggled to shake its original reputation, but streaming has repeatedly given the movie another life. It previously reached #4 on Netflix’s U.S. movie chart in May 2024 before matching that peak on HBO Max in July 2025. Earlier this year, the fantasy epic also appeared among Prime Video’s most-watched movies in the U.S., meaning its latest Netflix success is far from its first streaming comeback.
Nearly a decade after its theatrical release, The Great Wall is once again finding an audience, recently reaching #6 on Netflix’s U.S. movie chart. For Pascal fans, it also offers the chance to see him years before Joel Miller in The Last of Us and Din Djarin in The Mandalorian, fighting monsters alongside Damon on the Great Wall of China. Despite the controversy and poor reviews that followed its original release, The Great Wall continues to find new audiences on streaming and is currently available on Netflix.
English (US) ·