It seems like every day coronavirus is spinning weird news stories.
According to a Buzzfeed report, the 2011 film Contagion, which follows the effects of an outbreak of a flu-like pandemic, has seen a dramatic increase in streams this month. Of the films in Apple’s top 10 most downloaded, nine of them were released last year, with Contagion being the outlier.
At the moment, outside of its number 10 spot on the iTunes charts, it’s currently at number 21 on Google Play and is trending on Amazon. It’s also seen a massive spike in Google searches as people seek a entertainment that reflects the current state of (albeit often exaggerated) panic.
The film follows Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) who returns from a business trip feeling ill, which she chalks up to jet lag. Two days later, Beth is dead, and doctors tell her shocked husband (Matt Damon) that they have no idea what killed her. Soon, many others start to exhibit the same symptoms, and a global pandemic explodes. Doctors try to contain the lethal microbe, but society begins to collapse as a blogger (Jude Law) fans the flames of paranoia.
So far we’ve already seen what the outbreak has done to toilet paper stocks in Australia and now streaming globally, we can only wonder what the next side-effect of coronavirus may be… Stay tuned and check out the Contagion trailer below:
