Ryan Reynolds has quietly turned yet another streaming original into a global juggernaut: his new Apple TV Cold War thriller Mayday is smashing records and, according to ScreenRant, currently sits as the biggest film in the world. The action-comedy marks Reynolds’ latest pivot from superhero mayhem to spy games, and its rapid rise on streaming charts suggests Apple may have found its next tentpole franchise.
Mayday is a 2026 American action-comedy produced by Apple Original Films in partnership with Skydance Media and Reynolds’ own Maximum Effort banner. The film is written and directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, continuing their streak of high-concept genre mashups. Apple positions the movie as a global Apple TV premiere, available to subscribers in over 100 countries from September 4, 2026. It sits squarely in the streamer’s push into big-budget original films designed to compete with traditional theatrical blockbusters.
Set at the height of the Cold War, Mayday follows hotshot U.S. Navy pilot Lieutenant Troy “Assassin” Kelly (Reynolds) on a top-secret mission into Russian territory. When the operation implodes, Kelly is stranded behind enemy lines and forced into an uneasy alliance with an eccentric ex-KGB agent played by Kenneth Branagh. Apple describes the film as a “genre-bending, action-packed buddy comedy” that flips the traditional spy thriller on its head, blending military hardware, espionage tension, and banter-heavy character work.
Early critical response has been strong, with the film reported as receiving generally positive reviews from critics. The Hollywood Reporter singled out Reynolds’ comic timing and Branagh’s steely, deadpan menace, while noting how the movie leans into its streaming-first ambitions on Apple TV rather than chasing a legacy theatrical run. Tech and entertainment outlets covering Apple’s September slate have highlighted Mayday as a standout, with 9to5Mac calling the spy caper “a winner” and framing it as a key part of the service’s fall lineup.
Mayday also marks another pivot point in Reynolds’ career, threading his familiar wisecracking persona into a more grounded, period-piece thriller framework. After spending the past decade headlining the Deadpool trilogy and redefining R-rated superhero snark, Reynolds is again testing how far his comic-action brand can stretch in different genres. ScreenRant notes that the actor is heavily rumored to reprise Wade Wilson alongside Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine in Avengers: Doomsday, making Mayday a kind of between-phase showcase before he returns to the Marvel sandbox. Longtime fans who first discovered Reynolds through rom-coms like The Proposal, Just Friends, and Definitely, Maybe will recognize the same fast-talking charm, now filtered through Cold War paranoia and high-stakes military spectacle.
For Apple, Mayday is positioned as one of the pillars of its September 2026 programming, sharing the spotlight with new seasons of flagship series such as Slow Horses and other high-profile originals. Release rundowns from outlets including IGN, CNET, and Yahoo Entertainment all spotlight the film as the streamer’s big early-September swing, underscoring how aggressively Apple is chasing the event-movie space in streaming. With Reynolds’ star power, Branagh’s prestige clout, a crowd-pleasing buddy-comedy hook, and ScreenRant’s claim that it’s currently the biggest film in the world, Mayday looks like the kind of genre romp that can keep Apple TV in hardcore action and geek circles’ rotation well beyond opening weekend.
