Matt Damon's The Great Wall Roars Back as a Prime Video Hit Ahead of The Odyssey

Here we go again: Matt Damon is grabbing a sword and marching into yet another fantasy action epic, except this time it's actually a movie people want to see. I'm talking about 'The Odyssey', Christopher Nolan's ambitious retelling of Homer's classic saga. Sure, we have no idea how that will turn out (Nolan's never shied away from a challenge, but swapping time bombs for cyclopses is a big swing), but you’d be forgiven if you had flashbacks to one of Damon’s notorious career missteps — 2016’s 'The Great Wall'.

Believe it or not, 'The Great Wall' — also known as Matt Damon With A Ponytail Fights Monsters In Ancient China — is creeping back into everyone’s lives. And by 'everyone', I mean surprisingly many Amazon Prime Video subscribers, because it's somehow cracked the Top 10 movies of the week on the service, sitting (awkwardly) at ninth place.

Wait, What Was 'The Great Wall'?

In case your brain mercifully dumped this one, here's the setup: Matt Damon plays William, a European mercenary in a version of ancient China where, apparently, the real reason the Great Wall was built was to keep out angry CG monsters. Let that sink in. The director behind this was Zhang Yimou — the same guy who gave us visually gorgeous films like 'Hero' and 'House of Flying Daggers' — but this project was more of a guilty pleasure disaster than a martial arts feast.

• Matt Damon leads the cast, rocking arguably his worst haircut to date.
• His fellow mercenary sidekicks: Pedro Pascal (yep, that Pedro Pascal), Willem Dafoe (ever the wildcard), and Pilou Asbaek.
• Holding down the local cast: Jing Tian, Andy Lau, and Hanyu Zhang.

The plot is exactly what it sounds like, and yes, it somehow gets weirder the more you think about it. Europeans and Chinese warriors (with some extremely questionable accent work all around) team up to protect the wall from mutant lizard monsters. It's the cinematic definition of 'so-bad-it's-almost-fascinating'.

Critics, Audiences, and (Unsurprisingly) Rotten Tomatoes Were Not Kind

Even if you just watched the trailer, you probably caught a whiff of trouble. The action scenes are half-hearted, the dialogue seems generated by an early version of ChatGPT, and the cast looks like they're counting down to their wrap parties. Not a recipe for blockbuster magic.

'The Great Wall' pulled down a sad 35% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes — which, honestly, feels high. Audiences eked it up to a 42% (maybe out of pity?), while IMDb users clocked in at 5.9/10. In other words, it’s sharing space with forgotten oddities like the 'Clash of the Titans' remake, '47 Ronin', and 'Battleship'. If that sounds like damning with faint praise, you’re reading this right.

 'There's an overwhelming sense that none of the actors actually want to be there — and honestly, who could blame them?' 

Box Office: This Bomb Sort of… Didn’t Bomb?

Now, for the weirdest part: people actually showed up for this trainwreck. 'The Great Wall' hauled in $335 million globally. Not bad, except the budget was a hulking $150 million, and when you tack on marketing and distribution, the math gets dicey. In Hollywood accounting, a movie needs to make about double its production budget to break even. So, in this case, it arguably just squeaked over the line — technically not a money-loser, but certainly no 'Oppenheimer' either.

The real mystery: why now? Maybe people are in a medieval mood while waiting for Nolan’s 'The Odyssey' to land in theaters (mark your calendar: July 17, 2026), or maybe it’s Matt Damon completists trying to piece together the 'bad hair trilogy.' Whatever the reason, 'The Great Wall' has found a bizarre new following — and, for better or worse, you can join them on Prime Video, if curiosity gets the best of you.

Just don’t say you weren’t warned.