Pictures: Netflix
Welcome to your weekly rundown of the biggest stories from Netflix’s top 10 hourly figures drop for the week ending September 29th, 2024. 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 and we break down the biggest stories here in our top 10 report. There are a few middling launches for documentaries, a pretty good launch for Netflix’s big new rom-com series, and lots more, so let’s dive in.
Note: In this report of Netflix’s hours viewed from September 23rd, 2024 to September 29th, 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. Officer Black Belt is alive and kicking.
Let’s start with a look at international films as the South Korean film Officer Black Belt has had a strong start in the charts, surpassing 27.5 million CVEs in its first 14 days, enough to place it in the Top 10 best openings for international films in 2024 on Netflix. It is only the second film from Asia to figure in this yearly Top 10 so far with Badland Hunters.
2. Jailbreak: Love on the Run
That’s a decent opening for the documentary Jailbreak: Love on the Run with 7,6M CVEs over its first 5 days, besting Mysteries of the Terracotta Warriors and How to Rob a Bank but far behind What Jennifer Did, which will probably remain the top contender on the documentary side in 2024.
3. People want Nobody wants this.
It’s a good start for the romantic series Nobody Wants This, which garnered 10.3 million CVEs in its first 4 days, slightly less than the launch of 3 Body Problem without the enormous budget of several hundred million dollars. I’m relatively optimistic about its renewal, but only if it wasn’t originally planned as a limited series. Creatively, it feels unnatural for a romantic series to have multiple seasons with the same couple so we will see.
4. Mr McMahon is not doing any takedown in the charts.
The documentary series on Vince McMahon, the American wrestling mogul, has had a sluggish start with only 4.9 million CVEs in 5 days, placing it in the very low range of this year’s launches. As Netflix gets ready to launch the WWE live on Netflix next year, global interest in the WWE and its dramas does not seem to be huge.
5. The approval for Ellen DeGeneres new comedy special is average.
No big wave for Ellen DeGeneres’ return to the stage following the scandal about her management style on the set of TV show Ellen. With only 2.4 million views in 6 days, it’s in line with the average for other celebrities doing stand-up on Netflix in 2024, but far from newcomers such as Matt Rife.
6. Gyeongseong Creature does very well for its return.
It’s quite rare and worth noting, but season 2 of Gyeongseong Creature has had a better launch than season 1A, proving that the series has gained fans since its initial release, fans who rushed to watch season 2. This is very encouraging if a third season is in the cards!
7. Bangkok Breaking is breaking out.
The surprise of the week comes from Thailand, as the film Bangkok Breaking: Heaven and Hell had an excellent start with 5 million CVEs, marking the second-best opening for an Asian film released on a Thursday in 2024, behind City Hunter.
That’s all for this week, feel free to let us know what you think in the comments below.
