2026 hasn’t exactly been the year of Russell Crowe so far, despite a few new releases. None of Crowe’s new films have caught fire with audiences like some of his older work has, but it wasn’t that long ago that he experienced his latest hit. At the end of 2025, Crowe finally delivered his passion project, Nuremberg, to the big screen. After grossing over $70 million at the box office, Nuremberg went on to become one of the most-watched movies of the year on Netflix. Crowe has also been hard at work this year filming scenes for Henry Cavill’s Highlander, which is expected in theaters next year. He even recently shared a photo of himself on social media, showing a stunning transformation, putting him back in near-Gladiator shape for the first time in years.
Crowe was famously left out of the legacy sequel to his most iconic movie a few years ago, when Ridley Scott declined to put him in Gladiator II. Another Crowe movie that fans have desperately begged for a sequel to is The Nice Guys, his 2016 buddy cop comedy co-starring Ryan Gosling. Despite widespread acclaim from critics and audiences, The Nice Guys struggled at the box office, going up against Angry Birds, grossing only $71 million globally against a $50 million budget. The film is currently without a streaming home in America, but there is such a desire to rewatch it that fans have pushed it into the top 10 most-watched VOD list on both Prime Video and Apple TV. Shane Black wrote and directed The Nice Guys, which also stars Angourie Rice and Matt Bomer.
Advertisement
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Advertisement
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
Advertisement
🎭Ethan Hunt
Advertisement
01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
Advertisement
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
Advertisement
03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
Advertisement
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
Advertisement
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
Advertisement
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
Advertisement
07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
Advertisement
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
Advertisement
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
Advertisement
10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
Advertisement
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Advertisement
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Advertisement
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
Advertisement
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Advertisement
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
Advertisement
What Is ‘The Nice Guys’ About?
The official synopsis for The Nice Guys, which holds marks of 91% from critics and 79% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, reads as follows: “In 1977 Los Angeles, down-on-his-luck private eye Holland March (Ryan Gosling) and hard-nosed enforcer Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) reluctantly team up when a missing woman’s case leads them into the death of a porn star. As the bodies pile up, the duo uncovers a conspiracy reaching into the auto industry and the Department of Justice.” There is a tremendous desire to do a sequel to The Nice Guys, but both Crowe and Gosling have cast doubt on it ever happening. The cost would be considerable, and after the first film underwhelmed at the box office, no studio is going to be eager to foot a massive bill for a follow-up.
Check out The Nice Guys on VOD platforms like Prime Video and Apple TV, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates and coverage of a potential sequel.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login