Few actors working today can put butts in seats by their name alone, but fans of the genre still have at least one movie star they can trust to always deliver on the promise of a fun roller coaster ride: one of our greatest modern action heroes, Gerard Butler. Over the past decade, Butler — who made a name for himself during the late 2000s in fan favorite films like “300” and “Machine Gun Preacher” — has become the go-to actor for fans looking for some solid spectacle and cheap thrills.
Not all of his movies are great, but you know exactly what you’re getting and they rarely disappoint, making him perhaps the perfect star in the age of streaming. So while one of his latest action movies — the airplane thriller “Plane” — didn’t blow the doors off the box office when it landed in theaters in January 2023, it’s since become a hit on Netflix, peaking at No. 1 on the service’s Top 10 a little more than two years later. This simply-titled, gung-ho slugfest, co-starring Mike Colter of “Evil” fame, might just be one of Butler’s best action vehicles — which is saying quite a bit for the star of “Olympus Has Fallen,” “Greenland,” and “Geostorm.”
Plane is flying high on Netflix
Despite being released in January — when studios tend to dump their proverbial garbage — “Plane” proved to be far better than typical early-year movies. Though it suffered the same fate as others, earning just $74 million, it still turned a profit thanks to its modest budget. But don’t let the lack of success at the ticket counter fool you, because “Plane” is a first-rate action movie and possibly the most underrated of the past few years.
In the film, Butler plays Brodie Torrance, a former Scottish RAF pilot who now works for a commercial airline. On one fateful journey from Singapore to Honolulu, a lightning strike on the plane’s engine forces Brodie to make an emergency crash landing on a remote island in the Phillipines. Among his passengers is former French Foreign Legionnaire Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter), who is in police custody and being escorted to Canada to stand trial for murder. But Gaspare’s experience will come in handy when, stranded in hostile territory, Torrance, his crew, and their passengers come under attack from a group of dangerous rebel terrorists.
Riddled with tense drama, plenty of bullet-whizzing action and bare-knuckle fight scenes, “Plane” might sound cliched on paper, but thanks to stylish direction from French filmmaker Jean-François Richet, the film is elevated into something much more. Praised by critics for its strong cast and expertly crafted action sequences, it’s no wonder “Plane” is soaring on Netflix.
Will Plane get a sequel?
Though its $74 million haul at the box office may seem paltry, the fact that it nearly tripled its $25 million budget should help you understand why a sequel to “Plane” was greenlit just weeks after the film bowed in theaters. Although the filmmakers initially opted to keep the simple, one-word title theme but call the follow-up “Ship,” the name was later changed to the presumably more marketable “Plane 2: Stowaway.”
Initially scheduled to begin production in late 2023, with Mike Colter leading the cast (that reportedly won’t include Gerard Butler), “Plane 2” was to follow Louis Gaspare’s further adventures after Torrance let him go at the end of “Plane.” Unfortunately, “Plane 2” hit stormy weather and was quickly grounded due to the dual Hollywood work stoppages that hit just before filming was to commence. After the writers’ and actors’ strikes ended, however, there was little news, until Colter provided a disappointing update in 2025.
Commenting on the difficulty of scheduling the film, Colter told Collider, “That’s a question for them moving it forward, because I got things going on. I’m sure [Gerard Butler]’s got things going on, too; he’s shooting stuff … I’d love to do the sequel, but it’s kind of in their ballpark right now.” Considering the recent success of “Plane” on Netflix, perhaps “Plane 2” will prepare for takeoff soon.
