It can be said that Rebecca Ferguson is one of the busiest production designers of 2026. She kicked off the year by starring alongside Chris Pratt in the sci-fi thriller film Mercy, supported by Amazon MGM. The film received widespread negative reactions from critics and failed to make the expected impact at the box office. Following that, she appeared in The Immortal Man, a cinematic adaptation of the Peaky Blinders series, which also features Cillian Murphy and Barry Keoghan. The film is designed to serve as a bridge between the original Peaky Blinders series and its sequel. Ferguson also achieved the first critical success of 2026 with her role in The Magic Faraway Tree alongside Andrew Garfield, which is set to premiere in the United States on August 21.

The story of Mercy didn't end with its box office failure. When the film was released on VOD platforms like Prime Video in February, it climbed to the top of the VOD rankings to help recoup some of its $60 million budget. Mercy was added to Prime Video's streaming library last night, and despite being released several weeks ago, it continues to be one of the platform's most popular films as of this writing.

The film received an extremely low score of 25% from critics on the aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes. However, it has been quite well-received among audiences, earning a solid 82% on Popcornmeter. The film's structure includes elements from Tom Cruise's Minority Report and Mark Wahlberg's Shooter. This contrast seems to have contributed to its appeal among a wide audience in terms of entertainment value.

As Ferguson's busy work schedule continues, the unexpected VOD success of Mercy demonstrates that a film can find a second life on streaming platforms even if it fails at the box office. This gap between audience preferences and critical evaluations is becoming an increasingly common phenomenon in the modern film industry.