George TsagkarakisNetflix keeps building rockets that never launch. Two years after Rebel Ridge arrived in 2024, the acclaimed action thriller still has no sequel, no spinoff, no universe. It also remains the best original action movie the service has made.
That’s the frustrating part. The movie made Aaron Pierre an instant star and then the machine did nothing with him.
The sequel graveyard is getting crowded
Look at Netflix’s original movies and the absence of franchises is strange. Extraction has been the reliable one, with two new movies and a TV spinoff on the horizon. Beyond that, the would-be franchise starters keep stalling out.
Red Notice was one of the biggest movies the service has ever released back in 2021. Plans for multiple follow-ups have yet to bear fruit. The Russo Bros’ The Gray Man was supposed to open a cinematic universe and a sequel has failed to materialise. Rebel Ridge sits in the same holding pattern.
Which is odd, because it’s the one with the clearest reason to come back.
First Blood, if the paperwork came first
Pierre plays Terry, a former Marine who runs into a corrupt police force in a small town. The shape of it will be familiar if you’ve seen First Blood or watched a season of Reacher. One man, one town, one very bad decision by the locals.
Calling it a straight-ahead actioner undersells what the movie is doing. John Wick builds its story around the setpieces. Rebel Ridge withholds them. Terry cycles through his limited options to get back the money the police seized from him, and the film sits in that tension until he has no choice left but to use fighting talents that verge on supernatural.
The wait is the point. When the action finally explodes, it’s cathartic in a way it wouldn’t be if it arrived in the first 10 minutes.
Trust me on this one
Netflix has spent years chasing an action franchise it can own. It already made one and left it sitting there. Two years on, Rebel Ridge is still the movie you should put on when you want to watch someone patiently run out of options.
