Ryan Reynolds Just Set A Record Dwayne Johnson Will Find Hard To Beat

Ryan Reynolds, action and comedy star and celebrity spokesman, just set a record that maybe not even Dwayne Johnson can match.

By Nathan Kamal | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

Ryan Reynolds

Ryan Reynolds is one of the biggest film stars of all time, in a specific way. While the star of Two Guys, A Girl, and a Pizza Place is not yet on the list of all-time box office earners along with Samuel L. Jackson and Warwick Davis (seriously, look it up), he has recently set a record that even his frequent collaborator Dwayne Johnson might not be able to match. As of right now, Ryan Reynolds is the only actor to have three original movies on Netflix’s all-time top ten. Those movies are his recent time-travel adventure film The Adam Project, the Michael Bay-directed 6 Undergound (which we recently and accurately described as one of Reynolds’ worst efforts), and Red Notice. The lattermost actually co-stars Dwayne Johnson (along with Gal Gadot), and currently has two back-to-back sequels (or maybe just spiritual sequels) in production, so there’s a chance they could compete with Ryan Reynolds. But it’s going to take some work. 

We actually previously reported that Dwayne Johnson had three movies on the Netflix top ten list at once, which is a pretty huge achievement for anyone. But Ryan Reynolds does have the edge on him, as that was just the Netflix top ten of that current moment and included non-Netflix originals. These may be small quibbles, but if we’re ranking accomplishments, we might as well be specific. As it is, Ryan Reynolds has been roping his star to the streaming giant more and more in recent years, and it seems to be paying off for him. 

Ryan Reynolds

More than anything, Ryan Reynolds continuing partnership with director Shawn Levy is paying off enormous dividends for both. Levy spent the early 2000s directing movies like Cheaper by the Dozen with Steve Martin (recently remade as a Zach Braff/Gabrielle Union Disney+ movie) and Big Fat Liar, but struck gold with the Ben Stiller/Robin Williams fantasy series Night at the Museum. Since then, he has made the hit video-game comedy action film Free Guy with Ryan Reynolds (and the upcoming sequel), the aforementioned The Adam Project, and is preparing to join the ranks of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Deadpool 3. Basically, Ryan Reynolds and Shawn Levy together appear to be a license to print money, and Netflix is sure to take advantage of that. 


In addition to his apparently successful career as an international comedy and action film star, Ryan Reynolds has developed a parallel side gig as an investor and celebrity spokesperson for any number of products. He has recently starred in commercials for Mint Mobile, 1Password, and probably several others as of this exact moment, and managed to rope in a lot of other celebrities in the process. While we may have some misgivings about the quality of specific Ryan Reynolds projects, we certainly cannot fault him for the sheer breadth of his work and his relentless productivity. And also, that musical version of A Christmas Carol he is doing with Will Ferrell seems pretty fun, we’re looking forward to that.