September 16th to 19th >
Pictures via Netflix
Welcome to your weekly rundown of the biggest stories from Netflix’s top 10 hourly figures drop for the week ending September 1st, 2024. It’s a bit of a depressing one, with multiple shows and movies debuting rather low in the charts over the past week.
As a reminder, every Tuesday, Netflix updates its top 10 stats page with 40 new hourly figures of the top movies and shows of the past seven days. If you want to browse the top 10 hourly data easily, visit our tool, which has just been updated with even more data from the Nielsen top 10s.
Note: In this report of Netflix’s hours viewed from August 26th, 2024 to September 1st, 2024, we’ll use “Complete Viewings Equivalent,” or CVE, expressed in millions. That means we divide the hours viewed announced by Netflix by the runtime of films or series. It allows for better comparisons between films and series, but it’s not an audience metric. It is the minimum number of viewings if they were all complete from the first second to the last of the film or season.
1. The Deliverance fails to scare a global audience.
The new horror film from acclaimed filmmaker Lee Daniels did not do a great launch, scoring only 14.5M CVEs over its first 3 days, only the 10th best lanunch of the year (out of 15).
Now, given its subject and the cast behind it, it’s fair to assume that the film overindexed in the US relative to the rest of the world but we will have to wait four weeks and the first numbers from Nielsen to be sure.
2. Two international films barely survived a very weak international chart.
This week is a perfect example of how being second or third in the weekly chart is all relative and it’s the numbers that count. Untamed Royals and (Un)lucky sisters are two films hailing from Latin America and they both ranked second and third this week, in the weakest Top 10 for international films since December 2023.
Mexican film Untamed Royals only scored 2.4M CVEs in its first 5 days, far from the best launch for that geographical areas in 2024.
The same goes for the Argentinian film (Un)lucky Sisters, which did the worst opening of the year for a Latin American film released on a Friday in 2024 in my dataset. In sports, just like in the Netflix charts, you’re only as good as your opponents make you.
3. Worst Ex Ever is not the worst show ever in the charts. Far from it.
As far as true crime docuseries go on Netflix, we have seen some differences in the ratings based on one simple aspect of those shows: those dedicated to one specific case tend to do better numbers than those with each episode dedicated to a new case. Worst Ex Ever does not change that trend, but it moved an inch closer to the top by launching with 8.4M CVEs over its first 5 days, besting the launch of Homicide: New York.
4. KAOS does not find its flock on Netflix.
Let’s play a game called “Is this show getting renewed by Netflix based only on the number of “views” for its first 4 days?”. This week’s candidate is the English series KAOS with Jeff Goldblum, which is six years in the making and has been quite heavily promoted by Netflix. In its first 4 days, it managed to get 3.4M CVEs. Based on the graph below, do you think KAOS is getting renewed?
I’ll play ball and say that KAOS is likely canceled on those numbers alone, bar an exceptional turnout in its second week. Other shows with the same launch did get renewed, but they did not boast the same budget and marketing as KAOS, making it less likely to have the same fate.
5. Adam Sandler is not having a good year on Netflix.
Adam Sandler is one of Netflix’s biggest stars, with each of his films being a huge success on the service. However, in 2024, this has not really been the case, as Spaceman flopped back in April. His latest comedy special, Love You, could have been huge, too, but the fans of Sanders did not really show up for it. It launched to only 2.4M CVEs over its first six days, basically half of what Matt Rife: Lucid did a few weeks ago.
Happy Gilmore 2 cannot come soon enough as it is one of the most anticipated Netflix films.
6. IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack reaches new heights.
Indian limited series IC814: The Kandahar Hijack lifted off with a bang, scoring 4.1M CVEs over its first 4 days, the second best launch for a limited series from Asia-Pacific released on a Thursday.
7. Breathless needs to rush.
Spanish Netflix series are quite all over the place, in tones and genres, but also in how Netflix Spain deals with them when it comes to renewals and cancellations, usually keeping mum about them. Let’s hope we know more in a few weeks about the new medical drama Breathless, which launched with 3.8M CVEs in its first 3 days. That’s a good number overall, one that might be enough to get renewed if it keeps on that trajectory, but that’s also just above what Sky High The Series did, and that one was canceled.
So my guess is “likely renewed” for now, let’s wait in the next few weeks to see how it evolves.
8. Terminator Zero shows the limits of IPs.
Netflix has been exploiting known IPs in animated series for a long time now and is not going to stop soon, as it was announced just recently that it had ordered an animated series based on Twilight. Last week, the Japanese animated series Terminator Zero was released, and it got quite a good reception among critics overall. However, that did not translate into a breakout success in the charts, with only 1.7M CVEs over its first 4 days.
Now, is that because that IP is not big enough to get traction on Netflix or animated series, which are not doing huge numbers when they’re geared towards adults or using a Japanese art style? That’s what Netflix has to find out if it wants to make its new Twilight series a success.
That’s all for this week. Please let us know what you think in the comments below.
