Pictures: Netflix
It was a big week in the Netflix top 10s as we saw the launch of some of Netflix’s prestige hits for the Fall, including the next season of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s MONSTERS, which is so far falling short of Dahmer. We’ll also take a look at the launches for His Three Daughters and Twilight of the Gods, plus updates on Rebel Ridge and The Perfect Couple.
Last week, Netflix released its first half of 2024 Engagement Report detailing the viewing hours and views for over 16,000 movies and series globally. Use our engagement search tool to sift through those numbers and even see a chart of viewership over time.
Note: In this report of Netflix’s hours viewed from September 16th, 2024 to September 23rd, 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. Monsters is no Dahmer.
The new iteration of the mini-series Monsters focused on the story of the Menendez brothers after the one about Dahmer. Despite a flurry of press over the weekend, the lesser-known story and a less prestigious cast resulted in a less impressive launch, with 12 million CVEs in 4 days.
In 2024, it ranks as the 3rd best launch of a Thursday-released mini-series, far behind Griselda and The Perfect Couple. There’s no chance of reaching the all-time Top 10 with such a launch. Season 3, dedicated to a new serial killer, is expected to begin filming soon.
2. Rebel Ridge is riding high.
It’s somewhat the year’s surprise for U.S. films, as Rebel Ridge by Jeremy Saulnier, a film with a complicated production, surpassed 80 million CVEs after 14 days. This makes it the 14th best launch for a Netflix film since June 2021 and the 3rd best for 2024.
Estimates for its budget range from $28 to $41 million, and the cast is relatively unknown, but quality pays off. It raises the question of whether mid-budget films might ultimately be the future of Netflix.
3. His Three Daughters marks the launch of prestige film season.
The launch of Netflix’s prestige film season began with the release of His Three Daughters. As is typical for prestige films, the numbers are relatively low, with only 4.1 million CVEs in three days. This marks one of the weakest launches of the year for Netflix, although it still performed better than Shirley, another prestige film released earlier in March.
4. The Perfect Couple is aiming high.
The Perfect Couple continues its excellent run, currently ranking as the fourth-best launch after 14 days for a new Netflix mini-series since June 2021 and the second-best of the year. It will not be good enough to dethrone Fool Me Once for the 2024 crown of the most-watched limited series, but it did what it was supposed to do.
5. Culinary Wars is cooking in the charts.
Proof that the international Top 10 is in a slump this week is the fact that Culinary Wars, a weekly South Korean cooking show, has taken the top spot. However, the numbers are not particularly impressive, with only 3.8 million CVEs in 6 days, in line with other South Korean shows that struggle to fully break into international markets.
6. An update on returning shows.
Decay (rate) comes for us all, including Georgina Rodriguez, Ronaldo’s wife. Season 3 of her reality show I Am Georgina continues to lose ground compared to the launch of Season 2, which was already well behind Season 1. I wouldn’t be too surprised if this is already the end of the road for the show.
It also comes for Indian stars as the launch of Season 2 of The Great Indian Kapil Show, a weekly Indian talk show, suffers a steep decline, losing more than 50% of its audience for its premiere compared to season 1.
However, CoComelon is not experiencing any slowdown, with the launch of Season 11 having a better start than Season 8. However, it still falls short compared to Season 2 of its spin-off, CoComelon Lane.
7. Some flops, including Zack Snyder’s Twilight of the Gods.
Zack Snyder is having a terrible, horrible, very bad year at Netflix after the flop of Rebel Moon, part.2. His heavily-promoted animated series Twilight of the Gods was a no-show in the charts this week, only making its way into some international Top 10 in a handful of countries. With the Rebel Moon universe presumably down (although a video game was announced last week) and this animated series not registering with the public, this may be the end of Snyder’s stint at Netflix.
Tyler Henry may be a psychic but he should try and communicate with the living rather than the dead as his new live weekly show Live from the other side with Tyler Henry also failed to enter the global Top 10 last week. However, it did manage to show up in several high-profile national Top 10, such as in the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand
That’s all for this week. Please let us know what you think in the comments below.
Netflix Synopsis: "Across more than a decade, 17 teen boys and young men were murdered by convicted killer Jeffrey Dahmer. How did he evade arrest for so long?"
