After a slow start the week prior, Netflix’s stalker-themed biographical drama Baby Reindeer found an audience footing better suited for a limited series with a legit 100% critics score (25 reviews measured and counting) on Rotten Tomatoes.
British comedic actor Richard Gadd’s autobiographical limited-series recollection of being a struggling London comedian and part-time barkeep (played by Gadd himself), whose kindness to a female customer results in a relationship bereft of comfortable boundaries, generated 52.8 million hours of Netflix viewing and 13.3 million account views for the week of April 15-21.
That’s a big uptick over the series’ premiere a week earlier.
Debuting April 11, the seven-part British production generated just 10.4 million viewing hours and 2.6 million account views in its first four days on the Netflix platform, according to Netflix’s weekly global audience rankings.
Also Read: ‘Ripley’ Proves Not So Talented at Drawing Audience — Netflix Weekly Rankings for April 8-14
Meanwhile, on the film side, Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver, generated 44.2 million viewing hours and 21.4 million account views last week.
That was good enough to lead Netflix’s English-language film category, but not robust enough of an audience to surpass the lukewarm performance of Part 1, which premiered December 21 and produced 54.1 million viewing hours and 23.1 million account views during its first four days on Netflix.
Shot back to back in 152 days, Snyder’s two very Star Wars-ish films had a reported collective production budget of $166 million, a significant investment for Netflix made under the less risk-averse days of former film chief Scott Stuber.
Last month, Snyder drew some cackles when he noted that part 1 of Rebel Moon actually had more viewership than Warner Bros. global theatrical smash Barbie.
In fact, the release of Rebel Moon — Part Two inspired enough catchup viewing for the first title to land it No. 5 on last week’s English-language movie rankings, with 12.5 million viewing hours and 5.5 million views.
All told, Snyder’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek, back-of-the-napkin math might end up solving for X — total number of viewers — correctly. But in terms of Netflix’s bottom line, Stuber would probably still have a job at Netflix if Rebel Moon had been anywhere nearly as profitable as Barbie.
