With Love, Meghan (left) and Plankton The Movie (right) – Pictures: Netflix
Welcome to one of the biggest Top 10 reports in our history, and the reason for that is simple: it’s been a very busy week in the Top 10s, and there’s lots of news to cover. Here are the biggest stories from Netflix’s top 10 hourly figures drop for the week ending March 9th, 2025.
Note: In this report of Netflix’s hours viewed from March 3rd, 2025, to March 9th, 2025, 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 completed from the first second to the last of the film or season.
1. The Recruit is canceled and that’s totally normal.
Some have blamed the cancelation of The Recruit after two seasons on its poor release date, the algorithm, or the lack of promotion from Netflix, but the fact is that the series was probably doomed as soon as its renewal was greenlit. Per the showrunner himself in a Deadline piece that reads conspicuously like a salvage operation from the show’s producers, he recalls that the completion rate for season 1 was not good at the start before getting a little bit better. The more your completion rate is low, the less audience you can count on for future seasons, and that’s what ultimately killed The Recruit as its second season just did not manage to get that many viewers from season 1 interested in its story.
The sad part is that from its late renewal to its lackluster completion rate and the reduced order of episodes for the second season, season 2 of The Recruit was probably doomed from the start but that’s also probably why Netflix released it the week after The Night Agent, because it could have been the miracle saving it.
Think about it: people would have binged the second season of The Night Agent in a week, wanting more spy series, and lo and behold, The Recruit would have been there, just around the corner. Rather than hurting it, there might have been on Netflix part the wish to tie The Recruit to The Night Agent and help it avoid what they suspected would be a bomb. It did not work because the two series were too far apart tonally, but that’s another way of thinking about the release date.
2. Plankton: The Movie
Plankton: The Movie, an animated film spin-off of SpongeBob SquarePants, has achieved an unexpected success, ranking as the second-best launch for an animated film released on Netflix on a Friday since June 2021, with 14.3M CVEs in three days.
I should not be surprised as the most recent one, Saving Bikini Bottom, also performed quite well, indicating that there is still a solid audience for SpongeBob SquarePants movies on Netflix—films that the platform eagerly acquires from Paramount.
3. Chaos: The Manson Murders
The latest documentary from Oscar-winning director Errol Morris (who won his Oscar over 20 years ago) about Charles Manson and his murders had a decent launch with 5M CVEs in three days, making it the fourth-best debut for a documentary released on a Friday. However, given the subject matter, I would have expected much more.
4. Delicious (not)
The German film Delicious (set in France) has had a very mediocre start. It failed to entice Netflix subscribers, and the film is reportedly quite unremarkable, so it’s likely to drop off in the coming weeks.
5. Nadaaniyan
In India, the romantic comedy Nadaaniyan also had a mid-tier launch with 3.9M EVCs in three days. Unremarkable too.
6. Anitta
Anitta is a major star in Latin America (and likely beyond), but Netflix’s latest program about her hasn’t been a big success, with the Brazilian documentary Larissa: The Other Side of Anitta drawing only 1.5M CVEs.
7. With Love, Meghan
Since we’re on the subject of global stars having lackluster debuts on Netflix, let’s talk about the new show from Duchess Meghan, With Love, Meghan, which had a very modest launch, with only 2.6M CVEs in six days (likely its peak). This is even less than another lifestyle show, How to Get Rich, which aimed to teach viewers how to achieve wealth.
The show has been “renewed” for a second season, but not because of its viewership. Season 2 was already filmed and had been ordered directly. However, it seems pretty clear that there won’t be a third season.
8. Just One Look
The Harlan Coben brand isn’t always a guaranteed success on Netflix, especially with international adaptations, and this week, it’s the Polish series Just One Look that faced this challenge. It had a decent but not exceptional launch, with 4.5M CVEs in five days. It’s better than the recent Polish series so that it might have had a slight edge in that regard.
9. Medusa
Colombia has been a provider of surefire hits over the past years, and it continues with the series Medusa, which had a strong launch with 6.8M CVEs in its first five days, marking the second-best debut for a Colombian series. Colombia is doing really well in exporting its works globally (or the local audience is fully engaged). Since it’s not a miniseries, it could definitely be renewed with these numbers.
10. The Leopard
Here’s an example of a series heavily promoted by Netflix, as the Italian costume miniseries The Leopard was the subject of multiple articles and press releases throughout its production before its release last week. Of course, if Netflix is promoting it externally, it must be a success, right? Well, not really, as the series had a rather mediocre launch with only 3.4M CVEs in its first five days. As always, repeat with me the sacred mantras: external promotion doesn’t matter, and subscribers will watch what they want to watch.
11. F1: Drive to Survive
As expected, the new season of Formula 1: Drive to Survive had a weaker launch than the previous season, which had a lower debut than before, and so on. The peak of this F1 documentary series is now far behind, and its end seems to be nearing. Drive to survive? More like “try to survive!”.
12. Tyler Perry’s Beauty in Black
It’s impossible to analyze the numbers for the return of Beauty in Black because Netflix’s methodology combines the new episodes with those from Season 1A and reports them as a single figure. The series has already been renewed for a second season, so they must be happy with its performance.
That’s all for this week. Feel free to let us know what you think in the comments below.
Rating: TV-MA
