Last week, Netflix added the new action movie SAS: Rise of the Black Swan, which quickly shot up to the second spot on Netflix’s Top 10 movies in the U.S., behind He’s All That. The movie is not a Netflix original, but the streaming service still made a major change to the movie. When it was first released in the U.K. in March, it was called SAS: Red Notice. The movie is still known by that title on IMDb and also featured that title on its U.S. home video release.
Netflix likely convinced distributor Sky Cinema to change the title for SAS: Red Notice‘s streaming release because Netflix has its own Red Notice coming. This other Red Notice is a blockbuster starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds and cost at least $160 million to make. It hits Netflix on Nov. 12. The streaming giant wasn’t about to let a little-seen action movie starring Ruby Rose and Sam Heughan confuse its subscribers, so SAS: Red Notice became SAS: Rise of the Black Swan. The movie’s end credits even had the title changed.
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SAS: Rise of the Black Swan was based on the novel SAS: Red Notice by Andy McNab. Heughan (Outlander) stars as a special forces operator whose romantic trip to Paris with his girlfriend (Hannah John-Kamen) is crashed by mercenaries led by Rose (Batwoman, John Wick: Chapter 2). The movie did have a very limited release in the U.S. in April and grossed just $198,432 worldwide. SAS has a 53% fresh rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Magnus Martens directed the movie from a screenplay by Laurence Malkin.
Heughan helped promote SAS‘ Netflix release last week with a Q&A session with fans. “It was a super tough shoot. Long days, action-packed, and in the winter in Budapest. But I loved every second. We finished the day before Xmas eve,” he wrote in one response about the filming experience.
The other Red Notice is a big-budget action thriller directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, who previously worked with Johnson on Central Intelligence (2016) and Skyscraper (2018). This film stars Johnson as an Interpol agent known for being the world’s greatest tracker. Gadot stars as an art thief joined by Reynold’s con artist for a daring heist. Ritu Arya (The Umbrella Academy) and Chris Diamantopoulos (Silicon Valley) also star in the film.