Pictured: Muted, XO Kitty, and Selling Sunset
Welcome to your weekly rundown of the biggest stories from Netflix’s top 10 hourly figures drop for the week ending May 21st, 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 May 15th, 2023 to May 21st, 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.
There’s no stopping The Mother
Last week, we wrote that The Mother did the fifth-best opening weekend for a Netflix Original film released on a Friday and this week, The Mother even outdid herself. It climbed to the fourth-best launch after ten days for a Netflix Original film released on a Friday, besting The Unforgivable and Murder Mystery 2. How high can she go? She’s definitely all-time top 10 material, but we predict the film will finish around the 220-225M hours viewed mark, enough to be the 8th most watched Netflix film during its first 28 days.
CVE Viewership for The Mother after ten days
Faithfully Yours debuts strong
Dutch acquisition Faithfully Yours did a very good opening week with 18.2M CVEs during its first 5 days, and the second-best launch for any European film released on a Wednesday. There’s a big niche on Netflix for indie Euro drama about love and fidelity as we can tell by this success and the one of Loving Adults last year.
Kathal – A Jackfruit Mystery makes an average launch
Even a title inspired by Glass Onion – A Knives Out Mystery can only go so far on the road to success and that’s the tough lesson learned by Kathal, a new Indian film released by Netflix that launched with an average number of CVEs over its first 3 days.
Despite high expectations, this won’t be the global Indian movie sensation it set out to be.
Queen Charlotte’s reign continues after 14 days.
Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story is still reigning as it heads into the fourth week after its launch. If we compare all the new English-speaking series since June 2021, it is currently the fifth biggest launch on record, with 53.8M CVEs after 14 days, per our estimate. That puts it in the “huge success” category with titles such as Dahmer, The Watcher, and The Night Agent.
XO, Kitty reaches the hearts of millions.
After Queen Charlotte, a spin-off from Bridgerton, we move on to XO, Kitty, a spin-off from the trilogy of films To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. And for its debut, it did very well, logging 15.3M CVEs and the fifth-best launch for a new English-speaking series released on a Thursday.
That’s quite a feat considering that nothing on its art or title refers to To All The Boys… and that there are no big names attached to the series. Could it be the successor to Never Have I Ever that will end its run next month? We’ll see, but if there’s a new season to be made, this debut is very encouraging.
XO Kitty first four days CVE viewership
Selling Sunset returns for a season 6
The reality TV show Selling Sunset is back with its sixth season, and the law of diminishing returns applies here with 3.9M CVEs during its first three days, less than the launch of season 5. But that’s unimportant since the show has already been renewed for a seventh season.
Selling Sunset season 6 vs season 5 CVE viewership
Muted launches with a loud bang.
Spanish series Muted did exceedingly well over its first weekend, scoring the best launch of a new Spanish series released on a Friday since June 2021 with 7.6M CVEs, besting The Snow Girl.
The two series are quite similar in the sense that both were marketed as limited series. But The Snow Girl was renewed so it might also be possible for Muted.
Muted CVE Netflix Viewership after first three days
What are your biggest takeaways from the Netflix top 10s this week?
