Will Ferrell’s Wildest Comedy Just Took Over Streaming, 17 Years Later
Will Ferrell has kept audiences laughing for years, but when John C. Reilly teamed up with him in 2008’s Step Brothers, the duo became unstoppable — and the comedy is surging again, climbing the top streaming charts, according to Flix Patrol.
Some movies just refuse to leave the party. Case in point: Step Brothers just muscled its way back onto the U.S. Paramount+ charts like it never left the drum set in the first place.
Step Brothers just hit No. 2 on Paramount+
Per FlixPatrol, the 2008 Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly comedy landed in the Top 10 Paramount+ Movies in the U.S. on November 4, sliding into the No. 2 spot. The only title ahead of it: The Naked Gun at No. 1.
Quick note before anyone yells at their screen: the version of The Naked Gun streaming now is the classic with Leslie Nielsen. The Liam Neeson-led reboot is a separate, upcoming thing. Easy mix-up, weird wording in some places.
Still calling its shot after almost 17 years
Yes, it has been nearly 17 years since Step Brothers came out in 2008. The rewatch power is real. For the number crunchers: it sits at 6.9/10 on IMDb and 54% on Rotten Tomatoes. Not exactly 'family-friendly' by any reasonable definition, but clearly a crowd favorite all the same.
Quick refresher: why we keep quoting this movie
Ferrell plays Brennan Huff, Reilly is Dale Doback. They are both 39, both unemployed, and both developmentally allergic to responsibility. Their lives collide when Dale's dad marries Brennan's mom, forcing the newly minted stepbrothers to share a room and behave like adults, which, obviously, they do not. Adam Scott shows up as Brennan's insufferably successful brother Derek, with Richard Jenkins and Mary Steenburgen as the long-suffering parents. Ringers pop in too: Andrea Savage, Kathryn Hahn (yep, Agatha from the MCU), Seth Rogen, Rob Riggle, Ken Jeong, and Gillian Vigman.
What else is climbing the Paramount+ movie chart
Here is where the Top 10 shook out on November 4, plus where you can stream them right now:
- 1) The Naked Gun — Paramount+ / MGM+
- 2) Step Brothers — Paramount+
- 3) Vicious — Paramount+ (horror, starring Dakota Fanning and Kathryn Hunter)
- 4) Fatman — Paramount+
- 5) Top Gun: Maverick — Paramount+
- 6) Fight or Flight — Paramount+ / Amazon Prime
- 7) Faster — Paramount+
- 8) Grown Ups — Paramount+
- 9) Shooter — Paramount+
- 10) Grown Ups 2 — Paramount+
About that Step Brothers 2 that never happened
Will Ferrell has talked before about the sequel idea he and Adam McKay kicked around back in the day (this was while Ferrell was promoting Daddy's Home 2). The pitch was very Step Brothers in the best way: Brennan and Dale follow their parents into a retirement community and try to convince everyone they have 'earned' the right to retire too.
'We talked about Step Brothers, and then Adam and I got sidetracked with other things... We had a whole story where John and I follow our parents to live in a retirement community and try to convince them that we earned the right to retire as well.'
In the end, the team moved forward with Anchorman 2 instead, and the Step Brothers sequel never materialized. Could it still happen someday? Never say never, but there is nothing active right now.
Bottom line
Step Brothers jumping back to No. 2 on Paramount+ is one of those 'of course it did' moments. The jokes are quotable, the chaos is evergreen, and evidently, America still wants to watch two grown men ruin a drum set.