Lupin came close to becoming Netflix’s most-watched original series within its first 28 days of release, with 70 million subscribers checking out the fancy French heist show. But it finished just behind current title-holder, The Witcher (76 million). That record has since been broken by another series, however: Netflix claims that 82 million households have watched Bridgerton since the Shonda Rhimes-produced streamy drama was released in December, well over the streaming service’s original estimate of 63 million. Geralt of Rivia will need to take a long, sad soak in the tub to get over this one.
Of course, with all things Netflix ratings, there are asterisks:
[The Witcher] can still lay claim to having the highest percentage of Netflix households worldwide check it out. When The Witcher debuted in December 2019, Netflix had just over 169 million subscribers, per its quarterly earnings report. That means about 45 percent of its subscribers viewed the show. Netflix ended the fourth quarter of 2020 with 203.7 million subscribers, meaning about 40.3 percent of them checked out Bridgerton.
Also, Netflix defines anything watched for only two minutes as a “view” and the streamer is reporting its own numbers, so who knows how accurate they are. All that being said, Bridgerton, which was renewed for season two, is a massive hit by any metric. I don’t think Shonda Rhimes will be returning to network television any time soon.
(Via the Hollywood Reporter)