Jennifer Lawrences Divisive $303M Sci-Fi Movie Is Now Trending On Prime Video & Its Perfectly Timed

Jennifer Lawrence’s divisive movie Passengers is now a hit on streaming eight years after its release, and its success is perfectly timed ahead of her next sci-fi film. From The Hunger Games franchise and mother! to No Hard Feelings and Silver Linings Playbook, Jennifer Lawrence’s movies have seen her traverse several genres to varying levels of critical and commercial success. In 2016, Lawrence took her big jump into the sci-fi realm with the movie Passengers, which fared well at the box office but struggled to impress critics upon release.

Premiering over Christmas week in 2016, the Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt-starring sci-fi ultimately earned $303 million at the worldwide box office on an estimated budget of $110–150 million, with two Oscar nominations to follow. While divisive critical and audience reception led to the film gradually exiting the wider cultural conscience, Passengers is gaining an unexpected resurgence in popularity after joining Prime Video’s movie library on August 1, 2024. Whether as a rewatch or first-time viewing, Passengers quickly began trending high with Prime Video subscribers, which doubles as great news for Lawrence’s upcoming sci-fi movie.

Jennifer Lawrence & Chris Pratt’s Passengers Is Now Trending On Prime Video – What The 2016 Sci-Fi Movie Is About

Passengers Is Trending On Streaming Eight Years After Its Release

Directed by The Imitation Game’s Morten Tyldum and written by Dune and Dune: Part Two’s Jon Spaihts, Passengers follows the story of Aurora Lane (Lawrence) and Jim Preston (Pratt), two passengers on an interstellar ship taking thousands of people from Earth to a colony that takes 120 years to travel to. When Jim is accidentally awoken from his hibernation pod 90 years ahead of schedule, his loneliness after a year on the ship alone leads him to reluctantly decide to awaken fellow passenger Aurora. However, rather than tell her the truth, Jim lets Aurora believe her release was a system malfunction.

Serving as a sci-fi romance genre hybrid, Passengers’ main characters also fall in love over the course of the year that they are the only two people awake on the spacecraft. Of course, Jim’s actions in releasing Aurora soon come to light, with matters getting worse once another pod malfunction leads to deck chief officer Gus (Laurence Fishburne) waking up from his induced hibernation. Jim and Aurora must then risk their lives to help fix other damaged aspects of the ship, with Passengers’ divisive ending leaving the couple with a massive decision to make regarding their relationship and futures.

While the intriguing story led to a relatively successful box office haul, Passengers only holds a 30% critics score on the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes. Meanwhile, the movie fares relatively better with audiences, holding a more positive 63% score. With audiences, Passengers is often seen as among the more underrated sci-fi movies of the last decade, as several reviews note the cast’s compelling performances and its enjoyable nature as an easy-to-watch popcorn flick.

Why Passengers Is So Divisive

The 2016 Movie’s Central Romance Divided Critics

The driving factor behind Passengers’ divisive reception is its narrative, particularly the basis of how the main couple’s relationship is formed in the movie. Some reviews positively compared the sci-fi movie’s story to films like James Cameron’s romantic disaster classic Titanic and the sci-fi thriller Gravity. Meanwhile, some less favorable reviews criticized the narrative and romantic resolution given the manipulation by Chris Pratt’s character, comparing his actions to a disturbing dynamic between captor and captive.

Critical reviews have described Jim as a character with levels of stalking, creepiness, and violent intentions that aren’t effectively contended with or condemned by the film. After becoming infatuated with the sleeping Aurora, Jim effectively takes her life, future, and dreams away from her by taking her out of the pods for his own self-gratification and potential happiness. Even though Aurora becomes angry at him when discovering that he purposefully released her, Passengers doesn’t fully drive home the grave, cruel consequences of his actions, instead softening the impact in order to give him his happy romantic ending.

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The film’s critical synopsis on Rotten Tomatoes sums up the divisive nature of the film best: “Passengers proves Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence work well together – and that even their chemistry isn’t enough to overcome a fatally flawed story.” The controversy over Passengers’ central romance was even commented on by Lawrence, who agreed that opening with her character waking up could have improved the story’s efficacy (via EW). While Alien successfully lived up to its “Jaws in space” comparison, Passengers’ “Titanic in space”-style premise didn’t quite work, as Jack had never forced Rose into his life through prolonged manipulation.

Jennifer Lawrence’s Upcoming Sci-Fi Movie Can Redeem Passengers’ Controversial Story

Lawrence’s Next Sci-Fi Movie Is Produced By A24

While Passengers is still Lawrence’s biggest sci-fi venture, the Oscar winner is finally returning to the genre after several years. Lawrence is tapped to star in A24’s upcoming adaptation of Why Don’t You Love Me?, a dark sci-fi comedy based on the same-named 2023 graphic novel. A24 has produced some of the most remarkable sci-fi movies of the last decade, such as Ex-Machina, The Lobster, and Everything Everywhere All at Once, which is highly optimistic for Lawrence’s upcoming sci-fi movie. After Passengers, Jennifer Lawrence’s Why Don’t You Love Me? can give her a critically acclaimed sci-fi hit.

Sources: Rotten Tomatoes, Entertainment Weekly

Passengers

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Set on a colony ship carrying hibernating human passengers to a distant alien world, Passengers stars Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt as Aurora and Jim, two passengers on the ship who are awakened from their induced sleep almost a century too early. As the two begin to come to terms with their isolation and start to form a bond, Aurora begins to suspect that Jim is not as innocent in the accident as he claims to be. 

Director

Morten Tyldum

Release Date

December 21, 2016

Writers

Jon Spaihts

Runtime

116minuntes

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