Pictured: Elite, Slumberland and 1899
Welcome to your weekly rundown of the biggest stories from Netflix’s top 10 hourly figures drop for the week ending November 20th, 2022.
Netflix updates its top 10 stats page weekly with 40 new hourly figures of the top movies and shows of the past 7 days. If you want to browse the top 10 hourly data easily, visit our tool.
Note: In this report of Netflix’s hours viewed from November 14th to November 20th, 2022, 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. However, in its latest letter to shareholders, Netflix used the CVE metric to talk about The Gray Man, so there’s value in this metric, however imperfect it might be.
1. Slumberland lies dormant in its opening weekend
Slumberland was Netflix’s big play for Thanksgiving on the film side and it did no wonder over its opening weekend with only 16.7 million CVE in 3 days. That’s the 27th opening week-end for an American Netflix film released on a Friday out of the 53 in my dataset, far from the Top 10.
Slumberland vs other Netflix movies
2. 1899 makes its debut
On the series’ side, 1899 must have been the most hyped and promoted new series of 2022 on Netflix, maybe on par with Sandman. Hailing from the German creators of Dark, audiences are in for a mind-bending trip on the high seas, and… it does an OK start with 10.9 million CVEs over its first 4 days.
1899 vs other Thursday genre releases
That’s the best launch for a new English-speaking series released on a Thursday, but that’s not saying much when it narrowly beat Resident Evil which got quickly canceled. But the audience reception of 1899 is far better than the one of Resident Evil, and it’s not adapted from any license so let’s we’re going to give this launch a lower expectation and a free pass for now.
3. Is Elite running out of road?
One series that’s already renewed is Elite for a seventh season, and we have the launch data for season 6.
With 5.4M CVEs over three days, it’s 35% less than the launch of season 5, which was already below the launch of season 4. Had it not been already renewed, I would have guessed Elite would have been concluded but there must be something in the data that keeps Netflix paying for new seasons.
Elite Season 6 vs Season 5 Viewership CVE
4. Warrior Nun continues its fight for its survival
It’s time for our focus to go on Warrior Nun, whose fandom has been vocal on Twitter these last few days, demanding a third season for the series that seems to please audiences and critics alike.
But as we all know now, vocal fandoms can’t do much regarding viewership, so how did Warrior Nun S2 do in its second week?
Well, there is good news on this front:
- First, the series gained 6% in its second week, with is usually not the case for a returning series released on a Thursday (but we lack more data to be definitive on that topic).
- Another good thing is that the first season of Warrior Nun came back in the top 10s this week, meaning that people are either discovering or rewatching the series, which could then favorably impact the hold of the second season over the next weeks.
The main problem is that the second season did not start strong, so any subsequent increase probably won’t change the tide on that front.
Warrior Nun vs other Netflix Shows
The most obvious comparison is with the second season of Fate: The Winx Saga, which got canceled last month with twice the CVE of the second season of Warrior Nun (and with a reportedly inferior budget).
5. Dead to Me is quite dead to audiences.
Dead to Me is a series that does not need to worry about its future, which returned for its third and last season this week.
It returned with quite a lackluster start, with 5.7 million CVE over its first 4 days.
Dead to Me season 3 vs Never Have I Ever S2 and Warrior Nun S2
When season 1 was released in 2019, Netflix shared that 30 million households completed the season in its first month. I’m guessing that won’t be the case for season 3.
