Guy Ritchie's Treasure Quest Film Surges on Apple TV

Guy Ritchie, once synonymous with sharply drawn British crime capers, has long since demonstrated a knack for hopping genres. After the likes of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, he turned his hand to everything from Victorian sleuthing to Disney spectacle. His 2025 release, Fountain of Youth, is another genre leap—this time, a globe-spanning hunt for immortality, with John Krasinski, Natalie Portman, and Eiza Gonzalez at the centre of the action. Eight months on from its debut, the film has staged a rather unexpected return to the upper echelons of the Apple TV streaming charts.

For those unfamiliar, the plot is as straightforward as they come: a master of treasure-seeking ropes in his estranged sister for a quest to uncover the secret to everlasting life.

That's right, the secret of eternal life is once again on the cards for whoever can locate it, but you can almost guarantee that the promise of eternal life will come with consequences for someone along the line. It is almost like we have seen this before.

The premise, admittedly, treads a well-worn path, echoing the likes of National Treasure and Indiana Jones. Yet, despite a critical drubbing—Rotten Tomatoes scores languish at 35% from critics and 38% from audiences—Fountain of Youth appears to have discovered its own formula for longevity, climbing back to number two on Apple TV, just behind Brad Pitt’s racing drama, F1.

Familiarity Breeds Content

Apple TV, unlike some of its streaming rivals, leans heavily on its own original productions. The result? A more curated library, where titles like Fountain of Youth can resurface in the Top 10 months after release. It’s not alone in this; Tom Hanks’ Greyhound, Clooney and Pitt’s Wolfs, and even the much-maligned Ghosted have all bobbed in and out of the platform’s most-watched list.

So, what keeps viewers coming back to a film that, by most accounts, offers little in the way of originality? The answer may lie in its very predictability. The cast is strong, the set-pieces are, as one reviewer put it,

"stunningly constructed set-pieces" that leave you in awe of the scale of the film.

There’s a certain comfort in the familiar beats of a treasure-hunt adventure, even if the script feels cobbled together from a dozen predecessors. For many, it’s the cinematic equivalent of a well-worn jumper—nothing new, but reliably entertaining.

Box Office and Beyond

With a reported budget of $180 million, Fountain of Youth was hardly a modest undertaking. Yet, its sustained presence in both global and domestic Apple TV charts suggests it’s more than justified the outlay. In fact, it’s quietly become Ritchie’s most commercially successful standalone film to date.

Key details for the curious: the film landed on 19 May 2025, runs for just over two hours, and boasts a script from James Vanderbilt. Producers include Jake Myers, William Sherak, Dana Goldberg, David Ellison, Don Granger, Tripp Vinson, and Ivan Atkinson. Krasinski leads as Luke Purdue, with Portman as Charlotte Purdue, rounding out a cast that’s as bankable as the premise is familiar.