Netflix is famously hesitant to release its viewership numbers, meaning we’ll never find out which season three episode of Fuller House is the most popular season three episode of Fuller House. How rude. But in a rare-if-deceptive peak behind the digital curtain, the streaming service has revealed its 10 most-watched original movies ever.
The data was acquired by Bloomberg, which notes, “Netflix only recently began to release handpicked data, often disclosed in quarterly financial results, and this is the first time Netflix has released a list of its 10 most popular original movies.” There’s a giant grain of salt we’ll get to, but for now, here’s the top-10 with the number of viewers within the first four weeks of the film’s debut. There’s a reason Bird Box 2 is in production:
1. Extraction (99 million)
2. Bird Box (89 million)
3. Spenser Confidential (85 million)
4. 6 Underground (83 million)
5. Murder Mystery (73 million)
6. The Irishman (64.2 million)
7. Triple Frontier (63 million)
8. The Wrong Missy (59 million)
9. The Platform (56.2 million)
10. The Perfect Date (48 million)
The list is dominated by star vehicles (Sandra Bullock in Bird Box, Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston in Murder Mystery) and action movies (Extraction, Spenser Confidential, Triple Frontier), while the two surprising inclusions are The Perfect Date (not the Noah Centineo teen movie I would have expected) and The Irishman. A great movie! But a three-hour-plus movie that lacks the crowd-pleasing high energy of, say, Goodfellas. The “oldest” film in the top-10 was released in late 2018, which might explain the lack of Bright and The Cloverfield Paradox; people are watching Netflix now more than ever.
Speaking of that: remember the grain of salt from before? The viewership numbers weren’t confirmed by an outside source, so you have to take Netflix’s word that they’re accurate; also, 99 million viewers sounds incredible, but 99 million people (probably) didn’t finish Extraction, as Netflix counts a view as someone who watches only two minutes. It’s misleading, but this list isn’t so much about the number of viewers; it’s about how much people freaking love Adam Sandler and/or Happy Madison movies.
Let’s start a campaign to get Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga in the top 10. I ONLY WANT TO HEAR “JA JA DING DONG” (sorry it’s in your head).
(Via Bloomberg)