Kerry Washington's 30% Rotten Tomatoes Actioner Becomes a Surprise Prime Video Hit

Image via Prime Video

Published Mar 12, 2026, 5:17 PM EDT

In over three years at Collider, senior author Jake has now penned over 2500 articles covering a wide range of TV and film for the resources, lists, utilities, news, and interview teams. Alongside interviewing stars such as Selin Hizli, Rose Ayling-Ellis, Harlan Coben, and Chelsea Peretti, Jake was lucky enough to visit the set of Aardman and Netflix's Wallace and Gromit: A Vengeance Most Fowl in 2024, getting the chance to chat with four-time Academy Award winner Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham. Jake has also worked for other publications, including Agents of Fandom.

2025 was a year full of financial failures at the box office. Early in the year, Disney's controversial Snow White live-action remake, the MCU's Captain America: Brave New World, and Pixar’s biggest-ever bomb, Elio, were perhaps the most high-profile flops. They were followed by the likes of the Jared Leto-led Tron: Ares, Edgar Wright's The Running Man, and the infamous James L. Brooks-directed Ella McCay in a cinematic year that took no prisoners. However, not every box office flop proved high-profile, with an action thriller released in May having a particularly dismal theatrical run.

The movie in question is Shadow Force, an action drama written and directed by Joe Carnahan. Debuting just two days after Lionsgate's split from Starz, the movie became the first release under the new Lionsgate Studios banner, although debuts rarely come as disappointing as this. Shadow Force somehow only managed to return just $5.3 million globally from a reported production budget of $40 million. Unquestionably one of the year's biggest box office flops, a split of $3.9 million in domestic revenue and a further $1.4 million from overseas markets saw the movie's box office run cut short, following a debut weekend where it only made $2.1 million in U.S. theaters.

This terrible box office performance is made all the more surprising when considering Shadow Force's eye-catching ensemble. Led by Kerry Washington and Lupin star Omar Sy, the movie also stars The Penguin and Dune: Prophecy's Mark Strong, Academy Award winner Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Cliff "Method Man" Smith, and more. Thankfully, less than a year later, the film has found redemption on streaming, where it ranked in the top ten on Prime Video in the U.S from March 8 to March 10.

From Harvey Dent to the President: The Films of Aaron Eckhart — The Collider Movie Quiz!

Aaron Eckhart has played a wide array of roles in his 30+ year career. How many of these movies do you know?

Posts

By Macklen Makhloghi

'Shadow Force' Split Critics and Audiences

Kerry Washington holding her son, played by Jahleel Kamera, in Shadow Force

Shadow Force's poor box office performance wasn't helped by earning a negative critical reception. This is illustrated in the movie's 30% score on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus on the site reading, "Shadow Force is a painfully generic action film weighed down by a lackluster script, predictable twists, and a sentimental undertone that fails to resonate." However, audiences disagreed, with the action thriller proving a crowd-pleaser as it went on to earn an impressive 82% from audiences on the same site.