Forgotten Robert Downey Jr movie The Judge has become an unexpected hit on Netflix.

The legal drama, which was recently made available on the platform in the US, is among the Top 10 most viewed movies globally on the site in the past week, taking in 5.3 million views.

The Judge was originally released a decade ago in 2014, and follows the Oscar-winner’s character Hank Palmer, a big city lawyer.

Warner Bros.

 

When his father, a town judge, is suspected of murder, Hank returns to his childhood home and tries to learn the truth while also reconnecting with his estranged family.

The movie from director David Dobkin also stars Robert Duvall in an Oscar-nominated performance, as well as The Conjuring’s Vera Farmiga, Daredevil’s Vincent D’Onofrio, Succession’s Jeremy Strong, and Parenthood’s Dax Shepard.

Downey Jr is riding high after recently winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Oppenheimer, and this week was confirmed to be making his Broadway debut in new play McNeal, which comes from writer Ayad Akhtar.

The production will see him play the titular Jacob McNeal, “a great writer” and “a perpetual candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature”.

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“But McNeal also has an estranged son, a new novel, old axes to grind and an unhealthy fascination with Artificial Intelligence,” the synopsis adds.

“Pulitzer Prize-winner Ayad Akhtar’s new play is a startling and wickedly smart examination of the inescapable humanity – and increasing inhumanity – of the stories we tell.”

Meanwhile, last month Downey Jr admitted he would “happily” return as Iron Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, five years after bowing out in Avengers: Endgame.

“It’s too integral a part of my DNA. That role chose me,” he told Esquire. “And look, I always say, ‘Never, ever bet against Kevin Feige’. It is a losing bet. He’s the house. He will always win.”