Rami Malek’s $60 Million Spy-Thriller Flop Is Officially a Streaming Hit on Prime Video

Profitable an Oscar could make you a star, nevertheless it doesn’t essentially make you a bankable one. Rami Malek discovered this after the success of Bohemian Rhapsody, the $900 million-plus blockbuster that received him the Academy Award for greatest actor and seemingly positioned the Mr. Robot star for an enormous movie profession. Since then, Malek’s observe file has been combined. He performed a James Bond villain within the vastly profitable No Time to Die and popped up as a nuclear physicist in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, however his different initiatives haven’t all the time linked. He was a part of the star-studded ensemble solid of the Thirties homicide thriller Amsterdam, which earned simply over $30 million worldwide regardless of its spectacular roster. Extra lately, he starred reverse Russell Crowe in Nuremberg as U.S. Military psychiatrist Douglas Kelley, who’s tasked with evaluating Nazi leaders after World Struggle II. The historic drama did respectable enterprise, nevertheless it wasn’t precisely an enormous mainstream hit.

The final time Malek took high billing was in a 2025 spy thriller that tried to show the unconventional actor into an equally unconventional motion hero. It earned lower than $100 million worldwide throughout its theatrical run, however greater than a 12 months later, the film is getting one other shot with audiences on streaming. The Newbie is presently the No. 2 film on Prime Video within the U.S., according to FlixPatrol. Much more impressively, it has spent 21 days within the platform’s high 10, suggesting Malek’s newest main position might have discovered the viewers it struggled to succeed in in theaters.

What’s The Newbie about?

Based mostly on Robert Littell’s 1981 novel, The Newbie stars Malek as Charlie Heller, an excellent however introverted CIA decoder whose spouse, Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan), is killed throughout a terrorist assault in London. When his superiors refuse to analyze the assault, he blackmails the company into giving him the coaching and assets to search out his spouse’s killers on his personal.

His character has zero discipline expertise and struggles with the physicality of the job, however is ready to depend on his intelligence to plot elaborate methods to trace and take down his enemies. It is basically a revenge fantasy constructed across the concept of what would occur if the man behind the pc needed to develop into the motion hero — an IT employee to Liam Neeson in Taken hero’s journey of types.

It’s a intelligent twist on the acquainted spy-thriller components, with Malek’s unconventional hero giving The Newbie a lot of its enchantment, even when it wasn’t a smash hit in theaters.

What’s subsequent for Rami Malek?

Picture: SBS Productions

Malek took a step again from motion together with his newest challenge. He stars in Ira Sachs’ The Man I Love, a musical fantasy set in late-Nineteen Eighties New York that premiered at Cannes earlier this 12 months. Malek performs Jimmy George, a efficiency artist residing with AIDS, alongside Tom Sturridge, Rebecca Corridor, Luther Ford, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach.

However The Newbie’s newfound recognition may make the case for Malek as an motion star over again. A 12 months after its disappointing theatrical run, audiences are lastly exhibiting up for his unconventional tackle the style. Whether or not that interprets into one other motion gig for the actor stays to be seen.