Pictures via Netflix
Every Tuesday, Netflix releases viewing numbers for its 40 biggest shows and movies on the platform for the week prior. We dig through all the numbers to put together our top 10 report. This week’s report will cover a mix of shows, including Shirley, 3 Body Problem, The Casagrandes Movie, Physical: 100, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Damsel, Through My Window, and Homicide: New York.
Note: In this report of Netflix’s hours viewed from March 18th, 2024, to March 24th, 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. 3 Body Problem might have a big problem.
Over the past few weeks, I couldn’t help but think about 1899 whenever I saw a tweet or an ad for 3 Body Problem created by the former Game of Thrones showrunners. The two series are big, expensive, and ambitious sci-fi series with complex themes, heavily marketed by Netflix for months before their release. And, as you might know, 1899 was canceled after only one season, after a lackluster debut. Well, 3 Body Problem made essentially the same debut as 1899.
That could spell trouble for the series, which is billed as the most expensive Netflix show ever (it seems that we read that every time a new big Netflix series is released these days), but let’s look at the reasons why it might be renewed instead. Its second week might show an impressive boost, something very possible as the series gained momentum after the weekend and Netflix cleared its slate this week so that it has more room to breathe. Its average on IMDb is quite good, too, a 7.8/10 (higher than the renewed Avatar or the recently deceased series The Brothers Sun), which might point to a reasonable completion rate. Netflix might also want to keep an elevated sci-fi show in its slate as it brings prestige to the platform, and it also might want to keep it around for another season to please its showrunners, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, as part of its overall deal. It’s a bit too soon to tell, but the release is also a reminder of something else we often mention in the Top 10 report: the promotion or advertising that Netflix does or does not do for a show seems to have little to no effect on its viewership. Audiences will watch what they want to watch.
2. Damsel is still riding high.
I was wrong, I’ll admit it.
I predicted that Damsel would only reach between 110-115M CVEs after 91 days, but in the first two weeks, the Millie Bobby Brown feature has already blasted through that prediction. The 100M CVEs mark has already been cleared after only three weeks. Over its first 14 days, the movie has achieved 99.1M CVEs, the sixth-best launch for a Netflix film released since June 2021.
Films above and under Damsel managed to multiply their 14-day total by 1.3 to 1.4 when they reached day 91, which would give Damsel a tally between 133 and 138M CVEs after 91 days and a very good shot at the all-time Top 10 that starts around the 135M CVEs mark!
3. Through My Window offers us a glimpse of retention across movie sequels.
Spanish romantic film Through My Window 3 is on its fifth week in the weekly top 10, and its performance informs us why Netflix is sometimes quite quick to order two sequels right off the bat for its successful romance young adult films. Think To All the Boys... or The Kissing Booth, for instance. There is an apparent decay rate between the first and the second film of the series, but there seems to be a very limited drop between the second and the third which is, if the first one was very successful, is still relatively high.
4. Shirley’s message is not received by the audiences.
Shirley is the latest Netflix biopic centering on US historical and/or political figures and it managed to get into the Top 10 this week, something Maestro or Rustin did not manage to do. Still, with only 3.6M CVEs, it’s a very small launch in the same vicinity of Nyad, Munich, or Worth, three other prestigious historical biopics.
5. The Casagrandes Movie is not grande at all.
Set in The Loud House universe, the new animated film The Casagrandes Movie did a very small launch over its first weekend, with only 4M CVEs, just besting Nimona. It is noticeably lower than the launch of The Loud House Movie, which launched with 9.6M CVEs in 2021.
6. Avatar crosses an important milestone.
Avatar crossed the 28-day mark in the charts, which allows us to compare it to other series. With 56.8M CVEs after 28 days, per my estimations, it’s a solid B-tier launch, far behind the phenomenon that was Wednesday and quite a ways behind The Night Agent or The Witcher.
Still, it is still ahead of One Piece, and the trajectory of these two series is very interesting. Avatar seems to be more of a hit in the US than in the rest of the world, compared to One Piece. Last week, we had the numbers for its debut in the US thanks to Nielsen, and it was a huge debut. Its US versus the rest of the world ratio was 28%, while One Piece was only 16%. That means that Avatar was bigger in the US than One Piece, but One Piece was bigger than Avatar throughout the rest of the world. But in the end, they both are doing the same numbers globally.
7. Homicide: New York is not killing it.
Created by Dick Wolf, Mister Law & Order, the true crime documentary series Homicide: New York had a very soft launch with only 6.6M CVEs over its first five days.
What went wrong here? Well, investigators are on the case, but the funny thing is that it did around the same launch as Missing: Dead or Alive or Heist, which basically has the same structure, ie, one episode = one case. The other true crime docuseries on the list (which mostly had more significant launches) have several episodes on only one case. So this might point out to a Netflix subscriber’s very specific taste regarding true crime: give me more episodes on a case. I don’t share that taste personally, but the numbers do seem to tell us that.
8. Physical: 100 is losing muscles.
The first season of Physical: 100 was a huge success last year per any metric and the biggest international new reality TV show to break out. The first batch of episodes for season 2 was released last week and was not quite as impressive, with only 6.1M CVEs during its first six days, a 47% decay from the launch of season 1.
That hurts.
Physical 100 season 1 vs season 2 viewership
That’s all for this week. Please let us know what you think in the comments below.
This was first published on the Netflix n Chiffres substack.
Netflix Synopsis: "Across continents and decades, five brilliant friends make earth-shattering discoveries as the laws of science unravel and an existential threat emerges."
