The Beekeeper is meant to be a new franchise starter for Jason Statham, and the action movie broke an 18-year Rotten Tomatoes record for the actor in that regard. The 2024 film is the latest attempt from Statham to create successful action franchises. He has always kept a focus on being part of action movies, whether they are standalone adventures or part of existing franchises like Fast & Furious. Jason Statham is no stranger to action franchises as a result, but they have not always been that well-received, even when they have performed well at the box office.
Given his track record, David Ayer’s Rotten
Tomatoes history, and an early January release date, The Beekeeper’s Rotten Tomatoes score could have gone in various directions. The movie has now settled into the range that it should have consistently. The Beekeeper earned mostly positive reviews from critics thanks to its throwback action movie nature, resulting in a 69% Fresh score. Audiences have enjoyed the movie even more, as a 93% score is where the movie sits at the time of this writing. The two positive scores for The Beekeeper is a huge win for Jason Statham’s career.
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It is thanks to the critical and overall response to The Beekeeper that the film now holds Jason Statham’s record on Rotten Tomatoes. Audience and critics’ ratings are career-best for franchise newcomer Jason Statham. He helmed a number of early entries into future franchises such as The Expendables and The Meg. However, no other first installment in an upcoming or up-and-coming franchise has scored as well on Rotten Tomatoes as The Beekeeper, allowing it to set new career records for Jason Statham in that category.
The Beekeeper’s “Fresh” Rotten Tomatoes scores helped Jason Statham break records that his earliest action franchises set. The Transporter had his best audience score on Rotten Tomatoes for 22 years, while Crank was the best-reviewed franchise starter of his career for 18 years. The Beekeeper now becomes only the second time a Jason Statham action movie franchise has started with a movie that received “Fresh” scores from audiences and critics alike. In doing so, the action star has set a new bar for any potential future franchise starters to try and live up to.
Seeing The Beekeeper receive good reviews from all types of viewers is certainly what Jason Statham wanted, as it greatly increases the chances of a sequel. The film was well received by the audience and, as a result, did well at the box office. Jason Statham has a history of turning poorly reviewed films into successful franchises, so he shouldn’t have much trouble when it comes to capitalizing on the success of The Beekeeper. Now The Beekeeper 2 will have to try to live up to those high Rotten Tomatoes scores.