Picture: Netflix
The numbers are in! The Electric State hasn’t been a big hit for Netflix so far. Facing a headwind of a barrage of negative reviews, it didn’t stop people from checking out the movie in its first week, but it’s by no means a monster hit. How does its performance stack up against Netflix’s all-time biggest hits? Let’s dive into the numbers as of week number 2.
One of Netflix’s most pricey movies to date, Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt headline the new movie directed by the Avengers: Endgame duo Joe and Anthony Russo. It launched on Netflix last Friday, March 14th, and comes during an early Spring spot that has worked well for Netflix in prior years with the likes of The Adam Project and Damsel last year.
Much of the discourse in the week running up to the movie has been about how critics don’t like it, and that’s undoubtedly true, with that also being the case with our critic only giving a two-star rating. The critic’s score on Rotten Tomatoes sits at only 15%, with the consensus being, “Lumbering along like a giant automaton, The Electric State has plenty of hardware to back it up but none of the spark that’d make it come to life.”
That said, there does seem to be a big divide between critic sentiment and audience sentiment thus far. Don’t get me wrong, user reviews aren’t glowingly positive, but they’re certainly not as dismissive as the critics. The movie stands at 6.0 on IMDb and has a 74% audience rating on RT.
Picture: Netflix
So, did the reviews matter? They didn’t put people off watching Red Notice when it was released, but did they here? The answer almost certainly looks to be yes.
Week 1 Numbers for The Electric State
Let’s start with week 1 numbers which measure the first three days of release:
- The movie debuted #1 on the English movies charts
- It featured in the weekly charts of all 93 countries
- It scored 53.80 million hours watched
- That, when you divide by the runtime, gives you 25.20 million views
- On the IMDb MovieMETER, the movie is currently the ninth most popular title.
Week 2 Numbers for The Electric States
In the first full week of release, or week 2 as we’ll call it, the stats were as follows:
- The movie continued as the #1 movie on the English-language chart
- It continued to be featured in the weekly charts of all 93 countries
- It had an 11% drop in viewing hours to 48 million
- That equates to 22.50 million views, meaning it now has 47.70 million views in total.
As you can see, compared to Netflix’s other biggest English-language swings, The Electric State does not look good, performing alongside Rebel Moon’s two entries, which were considered to be disappointments by many. Does this mean The Electric State is bound for Netflix’s all-time top 10? Looking at the graph below, it looks highly improbable except for a last-minute boost. As a reminder, Netflix’s all-time list is calculated by the number of views in the first 91 days of release, and those first two weeks are critical in being your launch pad. If we add The Electric State to the graph, it looks highly unlikely that, without a massive boost, the movie achieves the all-time top 10.
There are a lot of things The Electric State is and isn’t. Was it an expensive movie? Absolutely. Will it probably be one of the last of its kind for Netflix? Based on Dan Lin’s acquisitions and publicly announced green lights so far? Maybe. That said, don’t think for a second that Netflix will quit putting Millie Bobby Brown in films. Her next project is set to enter production in April, with that being the return of Enola Holmes for a third installment, and there’s even more on the horizon. Netflix continues to also be in business with The Russo Brothers with Extraction and The Whisper Man, to name two projects.
Are you surprised by the viewership for The Electric State? Let us know in the comments down below.
Rating: PG-13
