One of the streamers I’ve found myself defaulting to in recent weeks, particularly when my favorite services like Netflix are in something of a dry spell, is the Fox-owned Tubi — a free, ad-supported platform that offers a pretty wide selection of shows and movies (and did I mention it’s completely free?). You can find tons of forgotten gems on Tubi, as well as titles that might have escaped your notice the first time around post-release. One of which, coincidentally, just recently caught my eye; it’s a Stephen King horror adaptation from the early 2000s.
“Dreamcatcher” — with a cast that includes Morgan Freeman, Thomas Jane, and Jason Lee — is about a group of friends who encounter aliens while on a trip to Maine, a turn of events that forces them to rely on telepathic abilities they acquired as children. It’s based on King’s 2001 novel of the same name, and though it completely bombed at the box office, it’s managed to find a new audience on Tubi two decades later.
Dreamcatcher’s second life on Tubi
When “Dreamcatcher” hit theaters back in 2003, it seemed to have all the ingredients for success — including a big-name cast, a story adapted from one of King’s bestsellers, and director Lawrence Kasdan (known for writing movies like “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark”) at the helm. If I’d been placing bets back then, the fact that its director wrote those two cinema classics alone would have sealed the deal for me. Unfortunately, critics decided the movie was kind of all over the place, and it ended up earning nothing close to justifying its nearly $70 million budget.
Fast forward 22 years, though, and Tubi has given “Dreamcatcher” a surprising second wind. The free streamer recently saw the film climb all the way to the #1 spot on its trending chart, proving that viewers are still curious enough to revisit even the so-called misfires of King’s catalog. In fact, this is one of the most common stories these days on streamers like Tubi — you never know when a forgotten or overlooked title will suddenly catch fire with a new audience. Whether you forgot about a movie like “Dreamcatcher,” didn’t catch it the first time around, or maybe you just weren’t even born yet, all kinds of movies have been finding a second life on streamers these days.
Go into this one forewarned, though. “Dreamcatcher” is still sitting on a terrible 36% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, based on a staggering 100,000+ reviews. That is to say: If you end up liking this King adaptation — and more power to you if you do — you’ll be part of a very small minority.
