Halle Berry and Mark Wahlberg’s action thriller, The Union, took the top spot among Netflix’s weekly rankings for the week of August 12-18, debuting to a solid 33.1 million views and 60.1 million streaming hours.
The film, which marks the first time the stars have ever shared the screen, reached the No. 1 spot in 63 countries, and charted top 10 in 93.
The Union performed marginally better than Wahlberg’s last collaboration with Netflix, Me Time, a buddy comedy that generated 59.2 million viewing hours upon release in August 2022.
It’s Berry’s second project released with the streaming service, with Netflix pulling the release of sci-fi film The Mothership in January of this year in a cost-cutting move.
On the TV side, Emily In Paris returned to Netflix, with its fourth season garnering 56.5 million viewing hours and 19.9 million views.
That was enough to earn Emily In Paris the No. 1 spot among Netflix’s English-language series, but it’s a far cry from the 117.6 million viewing hours generated by the release of the third season in December 2022.
Also Read: A Rainy Day for 'The Umbrella Academy' -- Netflix Weekly Rankings for August 5-11
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It’s important to note that Netflix has now adopted a partial release strategy for the series, meaning just half of the fourth season is currently available on the platform — which could explain at least some of the engagement disparity.
Still, according to Netflix’s in-platform content carousels, Emily In Paris has already lost the No. 1 spot to the streaming service’s new true-crime documentary, American Murder: Laci Peterson.
According to Netflix’s self-published weekly rankings, American Murder ended the viewing period of August 12-18 with just 12.4 million views, meaning the series earned more than 7 million views in just two days.
Jack Reid is a USC Annenberg Journalism major with experience reporting, producing and writing for Annenberg Media. He has also served as a video editor, showrunner and live-anchor during his time in the field.