Rohan Naahar is a News Writer for Collider. From Francois Ozon to David Fincher, he’ll watch anything once.
He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema.
In recent years, Mark Wahlberg has made a smooth transition from big screens to streaming, emerging as one of the highest-paid actors in the world. According to a Forbes story that hailed him as “The King of Streaming,” Wahlberg makes between $20 million and $25 million for his movies these days; he has headlined three films for Netflix, two each for Prime Video and Apple TV+, and one for Paramount+ in the last six years. During this time, Wahlberg has also headlined several theatrical movies that performed moderately well at the box office before finding a larger audience at home. However, just before the streaming boom in the late 2010s, Wahlberg starred in a movie that once had Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio attached. It underperformed commercially, but had all the makings of one of Wahlberg’s later streaming hits.
The movie in question was seemingly discovered by audiences at home recently, over a decade after its theatrical run in 2014. According to FlixPatrol, it remains among the most popular titles on the domestic Paramount+ chart this week. The movie was directed by Rupert Wyatt, who was coming off the super-hit franchise-starter Rise of the Planet of the Apes. It was written by William Monahan, who won an Oscar for The Departed, which famously featured Wahlberg in an Academy Award-nominated supporting performance. The movie initially had Scorsese and DiCaprio attached before Wahlberg and Wyatt replaced them.
The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you’re complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.
You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world’s indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you’re willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family’s weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what’s yours, you don’t escalate — you finish it. You’re not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone’s world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn’t make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.
You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You’re a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they’ll do to get it. You’re not naive enough to think this world is fair. You’re smart enough to be the one deciding who it’s fair to.
You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you’re not above reminding people that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they’d be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they’re more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don’t need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.
You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you’re the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky’s world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You’ve made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.
We’re talking about The Gambler, a remake of the 1974 crime classic headlined by James Caan. The movie features Wahlberg as an English literature professor who gets pulled into a spiral of debt because of his gambling addiction. It grossed $30 million worldwide against a reported budget of between $25 million and $31 million. The Gambler also featured John Goodman and Brie Larson in supporting roles and received mixed reviews. It now holds a 43% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The aggregator website’s consensus reads, “Well-paced and reasonably entertaining in its own right, The Gambler still suffers from comparisons to the James Caan classic that inspired it.”
You can watch the film on Paramount+ and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
