While Manifest pulled in the U.S. subscription streaming biz’s highest viewership of 2021 during the week ending June 20, the series—its flight ended at Season 3—is still making a strong case for itself.
It’s now the only show since Nielsen started tracking the four biggest U.S. SVOD services in September, that has tallied two billion viewing minutes for two consecutive weeks, garnering 2.06 billion viewing minutes for the week of June 21-27.
NBC announced in June that it was cancelling Manifest amid declining ratings. But that was just before it took off as a licensed off-network show on Netflix, which inexplicably announced the that it wouldn’t pick up a fourth season of Manifest, either.
Now—big surprise—both NBC and Netflix are reconsidering that call, and both are talking to Warner Bros. Television about a renewal.
Meanwhile, Disney Plus’ Pixar-animated film Luca maintained its No. 2 ranking with 1.71 billion viewing minutes performance. That’s up by 141 million viewing minutes from the week ending June 20. The coming-of-age adventure, which was released on Disney Plus on June 18 outside of Disney’s “Premiere Access” window, is set in Italy and is Pixar’s 24th feature-length animated film.
Directed by Enrico Caraosa, Luca is focused on two young boys who form an unlikely but strong friendship while they’re actually sea monsters disguised as humans. Disney executives didn’t release the film in theaters as planned, but instead solely on Disney Plus surprisingly without a $30 Premiere Access surcharge.
The Kevin Hart Netflix movie Fatherhood jumped two spots week over week to No. 3 on Nielsen’s ranker, garnering 885 million viewing minutes. Adapted from Matthew Logelin’s novel Two Kisses For Maddy: A Memoir of Loss and Love, the film was supposed to be theatrically released by Sony Pictures on April 3, 2020. But in March, it was announced that it would go to Netflix via a licensing deal, not a full-on acquisition.
Meanwhile, after just three days on Netflix, Liam Neeson’s The Ice Road came in at No. 4, with 714 million viewing minutes.
In the film, Neeson plays a big rig ice road driver who makes a perilous journey to deliver equipment needed to rescue trapped miners in Northern Manitoba, Canada. The film went straight to Netflix in the U.S. International distributors will release The Ice Road theatrical and/or online release in various territories in the coming weeks.
The Ice Road and Disney Plus series Loki were neck and neck during the week of June 21-27. The first three episodes of the latest Marvel six-part series tallied 713 million on Disney Plus. The show follows villain Loki (actor Tom Hiddleston) as he resumes his role as the God of Mischief after the events of 2019’s Avengers: Endgame.
Loki is Marvel’s third television series to debut on the streaming service. Disney Plus’s other original “MCU” shows, WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, premiered in January and March respectively. So far, Loki’s first three episodes, which are released on a weekly basis, are outperforming both WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Nielsen ratings-wise. The first three episodes of WandaVision drew 376 million viewers while the first three episodes of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier tallied 628 million views.
Notably, another Netflix-acquired series that routinely makes the rankings, Cocomelon, took the No. 6 spot. The computer-animated children’s program features baby J.J. and his siblings singing lullabies and telling stories. Twelve episodes of Cocomelon tallied 712 million views during the week of June 21-27.
Netflix’s Lucifer took the No. 8 spot with its 83 episodes taking in 603 million viewing minutes. The show ranked in the top spot-on Nielsen’s chart for two continuous weeks in May and June garnering over a billion viewing minutes both weeks.
Netflix released the second leg of Lucifer’s Season 5 campaign on May 28. Lucifer ran on FOX for three seasons before being canceled. Netflix brought the Warner Bros. TV series back to life for a fourth season in 2018. In June 2020, the streaming service announced renewal of Lucifer for a sixth and final season.
After being the most watched program on the four biggest domestic SVOD services during the week of June 7-June 13, with 1.434 billion viewing minutes in the U.S., Netflix’s Sweet Tooth fell off Nielsen’s top ten list during the week on June 21. The eight-episode series tallied 359 million viewing minutes during the week ending June 27.
Previous Weekly Rankings:
June 14-20: Netflix’s ‘Manifest’ Scores the Year’s Biggest SVOD Audience So Far
June 7-13: Netflix’s ‘Sweet Tooth’ Shows Bite for the Week of June 7-13
May 31-June 6: Netflix’s ‘Lucifer’ Bedevils SVOD’s Biggest Audience Since Season 3 of 'Cobra Kai’ Debuted in January
May 24-30: Netflix’s ‘Lucifer’ Has SVOD’s Biggest Week* Since ‘Coming 2 America’ Debuted in Early-March
May 17-23: Zack Snyder’s ‘Army of the Dead’ on Netflix Leads a Rather Lifeless Week for the U.S. Streaming Biz
May 3-9: Netflix’s $100 Million Bet on Sony’s ‘The Mitchells vs. The Machines’ Pays Off
April 26 - May 2: Netflix’s ‘Shadow and Bone’ Edges Hulu’s ‘Handmade’s Tale' in Rebound Week for the Streaming Biz
April 19-25: Netflix’s ‘NCIS’ Off-net Run Wins Another ‘Easttown and Down' Week for the U.S. SVOD Biz
April 12-18: Disney Plus’ ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ Builds to 855 Million Streaming Minutes and a No. 1 Finish
April 5-11: Give Netflix's 'Thunder Force' Five for Winning the Week of April 5-11
March 29 - April 4: Netflix’s ‘The Irregulars’ Tops the Easter Week Charts
March 22-28: - 'Falcon and Winter Soldier' Tops SVOD Originals
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March 15-21: - 'Grey's Anatomy' Re-Runs Top SVOD Ranker
March 8-14: - ‘The Crown’ Got Royal Gains from Meghan’s Big Oprah Interview
March 1-7: - Amazon Tops the Charts for the First Time with ‘Coming 2 America’
Feb 22-28: - Netflix’s 'Ginny & Georgia' Leads the SVOD Biz
