Does the World Love 'Bird Box' or Not?
by EG
Netflix claims that a third of its subscribers have watched Bird Box, and everyone is talking about the movie. But not many people, especially critics, are talking about how much they loved it, and outside ratings watchers estimate Bird Box is doing only marginally better than Bright, the Netflix original movie that's widely regarded as a flop. What's the truth? Read on for details.
Bird Box, Susanne Bier’s apocalyptic survival tale starring Sandra Bullock and Trevante Rhodes, attracted almost 26 million viewers in the U.S. during its first seven days on Netflix, according to the new Nielsen SVOD Content Ratings.
Nielsen said that of the Netflix originals it has analyzed, Bird Box was second only to Stranger Things Season 2, falling short by less than 1 million viewers.
Netflix itself, which is notoriously secret about its viewership numbers, had earlier claimed that Bird Box, which debuted on the streamer Dec. 21, posted the best seven-day showing for a Netflix film to date, saying that more than 45 million accounts worldwide checked out the film, more than a third of Netflix’s global subscribers. Netflix later explained that accounts had to watch at least 70 percent of the movie to be counted, but didn’t say how many viewers those 45 million accounts represented.
According to Nielsen and its measure of U.S. Persons 2+ Unduplicated Reach, Bird Box’s first day, which pulled in 3.5 million viewers, didn’t equal the first day of the 2017 Will Smith starrer Bright, which drew in 5.4 million when it debuted. But Bird Box then held steady — the distraction of holiday activities notwithstanding — and after seven days, it had racked up 26 million viewers to Bright’s 20 million.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
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