Comments
John Cena spent more than a decade as one of WWE’s most dominant in-ring performers before he built a second career in Hollywood, and that transition has proven far sturdier than the usual wrestler-to-actor pipeline. Early comedic supporting roles in films like Trainwreck, Sisters, and Daddy’s Home earned him trust from an established roster of comedians, and that goodwill steadily grew into leading parts. In particular, his work as Peacemaker in The Suicide Squad and its spinoff series showed a genuine dramatic range, while a steady lineup of studio comedies, including Vacation Friends, Jackpot!, and Ricky Stanicky, turned him into a dependable box office and streaming draw. That momentum has now carried over to his newest Netflix venture.
Little Brother, John Cena’s new Netflix comedy co-starring Eric André, is officially a certified hit for the streamer. According to Netflix’s official rankings for the week of June 22 through June 28, the film landed in second place on the English-language movies chart with 14 million views, trailing only the romantic drama Voicemails for Isabelle, which topped the list with 31 million views. That runner-up finish is a notable achievement, especially considering Little Brother did not premiere until June 26, meaning its entire tally was generated in just two days of measured viewership. The result places Cena’s raunchy buddy comedy among the platform’s biggest new releases for the final week of June, even before a full seven-day cycle of viewership gets factored into next week’s chart.
Why Is Little Brother So Popular?
Little Brother pairs Cena with André as Rudd Landy and Marcus Pinchel, respectively, two men whose bond began decades earlier through a youth mentorship program, back when Rudd was still in high school, before the pair drifted apart entirely. The plot resurfaces that connection when Rudd, now a controlled and image-obsessed real estate broker on the verge of a reality television deal, finds his life upended by Marcus’s chaotic reappearance. Michelle Monaghan and Christopher Meloni round out the family dynamic as Rudd’s wife, Deirdre Landy, and his overachieving older brother, Josh Landy. The film leans heavily into raunchy, R-rated slapstick, a genre several studios and streamers have tried to revive in recent years after box office struggles pushed it largely off the big screen.
Despite its success on Netflix, the response to Little Brother has been firmly negative. Rotten Tomatoes currently places Little Brother at 40 percent on the Tomatometer, with the Popcornmeter running only marginally higher at 46 percent among audiences. In its turn, Metacritic assigns the film a critic score of 52 out of 100, while its user score sits at 3.6 out of 10. Unlike the typical audience-versus-critic split that usually plagues Netflix comedies, where subscriber enthusiasm often outpaces professional reviews, Little Brother’s reception has stayed roughly aligned across both camps. That alignment suggests the film’s massive viewership numbers are being driven primarily by curiosity around the Cena-André pairing and Netflix’s own promotional push rather than word-of-mouth enthusiasm, a dynamic that could shape how steeply Little Brother’s chart position drops once its opening-weekend curiosity wears off. Still, so far, Little Brother has also held a spot in Netflix’s daily Top 10 across more than 80 countries since its release, reinforcing Cena’s allure.
Little Brother is now streaming on Netflix.
Have you watched Little Brother yet, and how does it stack up against John Cena’s other recent comedies? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the Forum!
7 Best Movies Starring WWE Stars
