Pictures: Netflix
Merry Christmas, and welcome to a belated Netflix Top 10 report where we’ll be diving into all the stats for the week of December 16th, covering the debuts of Virgin River season 6 and The Six Triple Eight and checking in with anything else that we deem interesting. The full top 40 and search tools can be found on our Top 10 hub page.
Note: In this report of Netflix’s hours viewed from December 16th, 2024 to December 22nd, 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. Carry-On keeps calm and carries on.
The second week of the action film Carry-On is as strong as, if not better than, the first, with the film now reaching 97.1 million CVEs in its first 10 days. This marks the 4th best debut for a film released on a Friday since June 2021, far surpassing last year’s hit Leave the World Behind, released around the same time.
With this second week, we can update the projection for its first 91 days. Based on the performance of films with similar 10-day numbers, we can estimate it will land between 136M and 157M CVEs by the end of 91 days, securing a spot firmly within the all-time Top 10. Personally, I see it finishing well above 140M, and we’ll know more next week.
2. The Six Triple Eight
I expected much less for The Six Triple Eight, but Tyler Perry’s film performed more like a typical Tyler Perry production than a prestige film, with 14.3M CVEs in 3 days. Admittedly, it’s likely doing better in the U.S. than in the rest of the world, though my (French) in-laws spoke highly of it at Christmas dinner.
3. Ferry 2
The sequel to Ferry, itself a spin-off of the Belgian series Undercover, had a decent (?) launch with 6.4M CVEs in 3 days, placing it in the Top 10 European film debuts released on a Friday this year. Unfortunately, we lack a point of comparison with the first film, released just before the introduction of the numerical Top 10 in May 2021.
4. Umjolo: Day Ones Continues Netflix’s Experiment
In South Africa, Netflix is experimenting with new formats, like the four-part film series. After the first part debuted with 2.1M EVCs in 3 days, the sequel, Umjolo: Day Ones, performed worse, with only 0.9M EVCs over the same period. This doesn’t bode well for the next two films set to release in the coming weeks, but it’s important to keep trying.
5. Virgin River season 6 holds but shows continued viewership decay
The romantic series Virgin River returned for its sixth season, and its launch is holding up fairly well compared to previous seasons. However, the decline is noticeable, suggesting the series is likely heading toward its conclusion in 2-3 seasons, with a seventh season already ordered.
6. Nobody cares about Aaron Rodgers’ enigma.
If Aaron Rodgers is an enigma, few people seem interested in decoding it, as the documentary series dedicated to the American football player has failed to draw a crowd, with only 1.8M CVEs in its first 6 days. This marks yet another disappointment for a sports-related program on Netflix.
7. The Manny season 2 declines on season 1
The first season of the Mexican series The Manny was a surprise hit last year, but the launch of its second season shows a sharp drop-off in viewership, which will likely be further impacted by the release of Squid Game Season 2 this week.
8. The Dragon Prince Season 7 Will Definitely Be The Last At Netflix
Absent from this week’s charts is Season 7 (currently its final season) of The Dragon Prince, a rather unique animated series. A few years ago, it was renewed for 4 seasons at once after the release of season 3, yet none of those seasons managed to break into the weekly Top 10 upon release. Netflix also commissioned a video game adaptation of the series, which was recently removed from the catalog. Now, the (few) fans of the show are calling for a renewal to complete the adaptation of the series’ third arc. However, all signs point to a non-renewal. Still, the series managed to run for 7 seasons, a rarity for a Netflix animated show.
That’s all for this week, feel free to let us know what you think in the comments below.
Netflix Synopsis: "Searching for a fresh start, a nurse practitioner moves from LA to a remote northern California town and is surprised by what -- and who -- she finds."
