Streaming viewers’ appetites for crime dramas couldn’t be more evident than on Netflix, where dramatized versions of true crime stories trend for months on end. So it’s only natural that fictionalized stories (in feature film form) could capture the same audience and take on new life by landing on Netflix.
Such is the case for To Catch A Killer, a 2023 theatrical release that was originally titled Misanthr0pe and now sounds like a primetime true-crime series and could also be mistaken for the Sheryl Scarborough novel. Yet in actuality, the story follows a screenplay by director Damián Szifron and Jonathan Wakeman while starring Shailene Woodley (as a Baltimore cop), along with Ben Mendelsohn and Jovan Adepo (as FBI agents). Together, they race against time to apprehend a sniper.
The Vertical film has been sitting in Netflix’s Weekly Top 10 movies list after nabbing 6.7 million “views” and 13.3 million “hours watched” in one week. That’s a respectable take for a film with a $3.1 million budget that coincidentally also sold $3.1 million in tickets at the box office. As a now-streaming film, viewers have gobbled up the tale about Shailene’s “troubled” officer, although this movie does land in a relatively unexpected place. Will there be a sequel?
At present, no plans have been announced for a second film, but you never know what could happen if a streaming service decides to take more interest. That would probably take several more weeks of trending status to achieve, so this might be in the hands of bingewatchers.
To Catch A Killer is streaming on Netflix.
