Welcome to your weekly rundown of the biggest stories from Netflix’s top 10 hourly figures drop for the week ending October 2nd, 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 September 26th to October 2nd, 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.
1. Blonde makes a good start.
Picture: Netflix
With its 167 minutes runtime, its NC-17 rating, and its auteur (and pretty fictionalized) take on the life of Marilyn Monroe, Blonde had several hurdles to clear to be a successful launch.
With 13.4 million CVE in its first 5 days, it does a pretty good start besting The Power of the Dog by Jane Campion which debuted last awards season.
It’s nowhere near The Harder They Fall or Bruised but those two films were probably much more appealing to a broader audience. Now, due to the controversy around Blonde, I expect it to fall sharply next week, but we might be surprised too.
2. DAHMER really is a monster success.
In its second week, DAHMER confirms that it is a major success for Netflix and Ryan Murphy, adding another 34 million CVE on top of the 22M of its debut week.
It is already ranked 9th in the all-time English series top, and it will no doubt go even higher. How high? That’s a good question so let’s try and see if we can predict something for its 28-day run. Let’s start with a brief comparison to other series in the Top 10 to see how DAHMER compares.
DAHMER vs other Netflix biggest hits
As we can see here, DAHMER already is the most successful new English series on Netflix, besting Inventing Anna by a clear margin and the 96,9 million of Stranger Things 4A are within reach if the series follow my prediction model. I see it reaching 820-860 million hours viewed at the end of its 28-day run, so between 92 and 98 million CVE. That would place DAHMER among the all-time greats at the second place in the English all-time rankings. It is however nowhere near Squid Game which was in entirely a league of its own.
3. The Empress rules.
The Empress on Netflix
Queens really are a soft spot for Netflix subs all across the globe as the new version on the life of the Austrian empress Sissi did a great start with 8.3 million CVE over its first 4 days and even managed to break into Netflix’s Top 10 in the US and in the UK. In these two territories, international series hardly ever feature in the top 10.
This is the best start for any international series debuting on a Thursday based on available data thus far.
4. Entergalactic bombed. Or did it?
Entergalactic – Picture: Netflix
One notable absent this week in the Top 10 charts is the animated film Entergalactic, though heavily promoted by Netflix and released on a strategic date at the end of the financial quarter.
There’s an explanation for that, one that might be entirely of Netflix’s making as it is the result of an extraordinarily blurry marketing period that failed to define what Entergalactic is.
First described as a Television event, then as a series, and finally as a special, the program is an animated film with a 92-minutes runtime.
However, Netflix still considers it a series, and in that respect, it is logged in with the other series of much longer runtimes around the globe. If it had been in the film, maybe we would have seen some numbers for it, and that mistake is something Netflix will have to explain at some point or even correct.
5. Heartbreak High is doing something quite unique.
Heartbreak High
Two weeks ago, I wrote that Heartbreak High was a flop because it was nowhere to be seen in the charts for its debut week.
Last week, the series showed up, and we lowered it to be “less of a flop”. But here we are a week later and Heartbreak High is doing something quite unique as it lost only -18% in its third week compared to its second week. That is the best retention rate between week 2 and 3 for any series released on a Wednesday in my dataset. So let’s call it a sleeper hit for now.
It’s reportedly been renewed and using raw top 10s the series is still performing particularly well in Australia.
Netflix Synopsis: "When rebellious Elisabeth falls for Emperor Franz and becomes his unlikely bride, she enters a world of tension and intrigue at the Viennese court."
