Pictured: The Night Agent, Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga + Shadow and Bone
Welcome to your weekly rundown of the biggest stories from Netflix’s top 10 hourly figures drop for the week ending March 26th, 2023.
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.
Note: In this report of Netflix’s hours viewed from March 20th, 2023 to March 26th, 2023, 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 Night Agent does a solid start.
Designed to be Netflix’s big new splashy spy series released in time to coincide with the end of the first financial quarter of 2023 and they got what they paid for. The Night Agent delivered an impressive start of 20.8M CVEs over its first four days. That’s the second-best launch for any series released on a Thursday, just behind The Watcher which ended up being renewed (a feat for a limited series at the time).
If the trend keeps up next week, a renewal is almost certainly in the bag. And it helps that the series is good too!
2. Is an Indian film from Netflix finally breaking out globally?
India has been a very interesting territory to follow when it comes to Netflix’s investment in original content, with a lot of films and series coming out but not really managing to go further than its borders.
That is changing this week with the thriller Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga which managed to reach the weekly Top 10 of 45 countries last week. With 6.4M CVEs, it is the best launch for any Indian film released on a Friday on Netflix globally.
Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga vs other Netflix Originals from India
It also boasts a fantastic 8.0/10 average grade on IMDb on 20,000 reviews as of writing. Let’s see how Netflix India can build on that now.
3. Love is Blind returns!
The pods are open, and emotions are already flying high as the dating show Love is Blind is back for a fourth season.
Released in four installments, the first batch of episodes managed to be bigger than the launch of season 2, with 5.4M CVEs over its first three days. It’s hard to compare with season 3 as the last season was released on a Wednesday (6.5M CVEs in five days) whilst seasons 2 and 4 were released on a Friday but let’s just say that season 4 is probably the best start so far for Love is Blind.
Love is Blind evolution season 2 vs season 4 – CVE viewership
4. Shadow & Bone is only the shadow of its former self
Shadow and Bone. (L to R) Jessie Mei Li as Alina Starkov, Archie Renaux as Malyen Oretsev in episode 201 of Shadow and Bone. Cr. Dávid Lukács/Netflix © 2023
The numbers are in for the second week of season 2 of Shadow & Bone, and things are not looking up for the YA fantasy series.
With only 13.3M CVEs after 11 days, it’s following the same trajectory as Raising Dion which was promptly canceled last year. I
t’s also doing way worse than season 2 of Fate: The Winx Saga (that was also canceled) but better than Season 2 of Warrior Nun (marginally).
Shadow and Bone viewership vs other Netflix Originals
This time around, though, fans of the series might have a difficult time explaining a hypothetical cancellation on the lack of promotion from Netflix as the series’ return was heavily promoted. Repeat after me because it’s important: External. promotion. does. not. matter. for. returning. series. Or even films, for that matter, as the first Murder Mystery is back in the Top 10 this week, four years after its release and a week before the sequel’s release.
I think it’s hard to overstate the fact that subscribers are being aware of what’s released on Netflix, through the coming soon section, for example, or through the recommendation algorithm. But sometimes, all the recommendations in the world are not enough. One cause to explain the dismal numbers for Shadow & Bone might be the length of time between the release of seasons.
Two years is a long time.
5. Luther: The Fallen Sun is the biggest Netflix film of the first three months of 2023.
OK, I count Murder Mystery 2 as a second quarter of 2023 film as it will be released on the 31st of March and will do most of its career next month but let’s take a look at Luther: The Fallen Sun, which, in its third week, is still number 1 on Netflix
. It has now reached 73.9M CVEs over its first 17 days, but if we only take its first 14 days (a new metric I’m working on), it is the biggest film this first quarter with approximately 70.5M CVEs, just before You People that also did exceptionally well.
Luther: The Fallen Sun after 14 days CVE viewership
You People in January, Your Place or Mine in February, Luther: The Fallen Sun in March, Murder Mystery 2 in April, The Mother in May, Extraction 2 in June… The monthly slate of big English-language Netflix films is ready to battle for the dominance of the Top 10, and I’m ready for it.
