Murder Mystery 2: Netflix sequel starring Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler hits streaming milestone

The Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler mystery has reached the top 10 in over 90 countries

Murder Mystery 2 has enjoyed the second biggest opening weekend of any Netflix comedy film.

Starring Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler, Murder Mystery 2 was watched over 42 million times last weekend (per Variety) after its debut on 31 March.

The Netflix crime comedy follows on from the original Murder Mystery, which was released on the streaming service in 2019.

In the days after its release, the sequel climbed Netflix’s ratings and has been the most-watched film since Saturday (1 April) in the UK with the first film also ranking highly.

It wasn’t just the UK that loved Sandler and Aniston’s crime-solving couple: the film managed to reach Netflix’s Top 10 in over 90 countries.

Sandler and the former Friends star reprised their roles as Nick and Audrey, who have both given up their jobs to become full-time private investigators this time around.

The international cast includes the Maharajah Vick, played by Adeel Akhtar (Ali and Ava, Four Lions), a private investigator Miller played by Mark Strong (Kingsman, Tár) and Melanie Laurent (Now You See Me) as the Maharajah’s bride-to-be.

The franchise is part of Sandler’s $250m (£202m) four-film deal with Netflix and has seen broadly positive reviews.

Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler in ‘Murder Mystery 2' (Scott Yamano/Netflix)

In a three-star write-up for The Independent, Clarisse Loughrey wrote: “Arguably, Murder Mystery (2019) – in which [Sandler] and Jennifer Aniston played a hapless couple trapped in a real-life game of Cluedo while on holiday – achieved a pinnacle in mindless distraction. It wasn’t all that funny. It wasn’t all that clever. But it was eminently watchable.

“It’s also funny to see how much its sequel riffs on Knives Out, seeing as the original Murder Mystery preceded that Rian Johnson film and the whodunnit craze it spawned. Because, essentially, Murder Mystery 2 is what you watch if it seems like Glass Onion might require too many brain cells.”

In the days since the film’s release, a number of viewers have questioned the logic of the film’s title, identifying a “hilarious” issue with the Netflix sequel.