A Veritable IP-apalooza: The May JustWatch Top 10

Although April included a fairly diverse array of interesting original titles, May’s list of the most-sought after films on what should be every movie lover’s top streaming resource, JustWatch, is filthy with Intellectual Property franchise fare.

The top 10 most-searched flicks on JustWatch includes just two holdovers from April: reigning Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All At Once (written and directed by The Movies That Made Me podcast guests Daniels), fresh off its Oscar dominance in March, and this year’s lengthy Keanu action extravaganza John Wick: Chapter 4.

Beyond EEAAO, only one movie not based on a preexisting “property” made the cut: Sisu, an international period actioner. Two other flicks in last month’s top 10 don’t lend themselves to sequels necessarily. Another film, the Tom Hanks starrer A Man Called Otto, is a remake of an adaptation of a novel. Because Otto is an adult-oriented dramedy and not eminently franchise-able, it falls more in line with the classic way movies used to be sourced. Yours truly would not classify it as “IP” per se. The picture was a moderate theatrical hit when it reached screens in January and will probably find a bigger audience on streaming and home video now.

Air, director/star Ben Affleck’s solid tale of the 1984 Nike negotiations that helped them land the greatest basketball player of all time, one Michael Jeffrey Jordan, is based on an historic moment in modern sports lore, and double effectively as a commercial for one of the cooler sportswear brands on the market. There won’t be a sequel to this picture, though there have been several very nakedly capitalist “product biopics” of late, including Tetris and Blackberry.

The rest of May’s top 10 is retread city. The latest theatrical attempt at launching a Dungeons & Dragons franchise, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, tops the list, followed by this year’s current box office champ, The Super Mario Bros. Movie. With a new Spider-Verse entry hitting theaters this month, its predecessor, 2018’s Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, directed by another The Movies That Made Me podcast guest, Peter Ramsey. New, little-loved entries from the MCU (Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania, No. 8) and DCEU (Shazam! Fury Of The Gods) round out the top 10.