‘Reacher’ Fans Push Alan Ritchson’s Alien Invasion Blockbuster Past Major Streaming Milestone in 1 Week

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Reacher star Alan Ritchson at a Wheel of Time event for Prime Video.

Published Mar 14, 2026, 10:41 AM EDT

Rohan Naahar is a Weekend News Writer for Collider. From Francois Ozon to David Fincher, he'll watch anything once.

He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema.

All it takes is one project to strike a chord with audiences, and then, you're off to the races. Alan Ritchson had that breakout project not too long ago, when Prime Video's Reacher series leveraged the growing streaming market in 2022. The show has since aired two more seasons and is set to return for a fourth, while a spin-off series is also in the works. Ritchson, who was about to turn 40 when the show came out, has since worked on a string of high-profile projects that have cemented his stature as one of the biggest streaming stars of his generation. Last year, he starred alongside Kevin James in the action-comedy film Playdate, which did very well on Prime Video despite poor reviews. Now he's ruling over the Netflix charts with his latest offering, the sci-fi action film War Machine.

Directed by Patrick Hughes, the movie has passed a major milestone in its run, thanks to an enthusiastic show of support from Ritchson's fans and largely positive reviews. The movie holds a 70% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics' consensus reads, "Providing Alan Ritchson an ideal vehicle to flex his brawny charisma, War Machine occasionally clanks when it comes to character depth, but otherwise soldiers on to deliver an awesome dose of action spectacle." In his review, Collider's Aidan Kelley praised Ritchson's performance and described the movie as "an ambitious sci-fi spectacle that might not quite reach the heights to be called a modern action classic, but it does do enough to get the job done."

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Here's the Benchmark That 'War Machine' Has Passed

War Machine also features Dennis Quaid, Stephan James, Esai Morales, and Jai Courtney in supporting roles, and blends war movie elements with alien-invasion spectacle. The movie has now spent a full week at the top of Netflix's domestic and global viewership charts, putting it on course to become one of the streamer's first major hits of 2026. According to Netflix, the film has registered 71 million viewership hours in one week of release, which amounts to nearly 40 million views in total. Ritchson will next star alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in a holiday-themed action film, and will then headline another action movie alongside Owen Wilson. He will reunite with Hughes on a biopic of the Vietnam War hero Michael E. Thornton. You can watch War Machine on Netflix, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.