Army of the Dead – Picture: Netflix
Following the release of Army of Thieves on Netflix last Friday, Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead has rocketed back on Netflix around the globe re-entering the top 10s months after its initial release.
Army of Thieves arrived on Netflix on October 29th, 2021 and after a week, it topped the global top 10 charts for the week ending November 5th beating out Halloween release Hypnotic.
With 5,964 global points (based on available countries provided by FlixPatrol) Army of Thieves beat out Hypnotic with 4,755 points but in third place was Army of the Dead with 2831 points.
Based on our data, this is the strongest re-emergence we’ve seen for a Netflix Original movie around the time of a sequel/prequel release. We did see To All The Boys re-enter the top 10s around the time of the release of the third entry earlier this year but that wasn’t comparable to Army of the Dead‘s surge in the top 10s.
For those unaware, Army of the Dead was released on Netflix on May 21st and came from director Zack Snyder. Army of Thieves, set in the same universe, serves a prequel telling the story of Dieter being recruited for his first major heist with the impending zombie apocalypse happening in the background. Dieter also appeared in Army of the Dead but sadly (spoiler alert), didn’t make it to the end of the film.
Army of the Dead currently holds position number 9 on Netflix’s most-watched English language movies (based on released 2-minute viewing figures) with 75 million views within 4 weeks of release.
Why did Army of the Dead get a big boost on Netflix?
There’s no doubt several factors as to why Army of the Dead had such a strong week in the Netflix top 10s again.
Possibly most important is that the movies are connected with many references in both directions throughout each respective movie. There’s plenty of easter eggs (such as some extras appearing in both) as well as hints towards a sequel to Army of the Dead too. It even expands on the time loop theory hinted out throughout the first movie too.
Just a quick search on Twitter reveals that many rewatched Army of the Dead just to clear up some of the more plot-specific references between the two movies.
Army of Thieves was good as hell I feel like I need to rewatch Army of the Dead now
— CLB 🥀 (@Kashankashae) November 4, 2021
Army Of Thieves was fuckin awesome, 9/10. I am def gonna rewatch Army of the Dead aswell. I love Deiter.
— •Q• || (@qfeckinragnarok) October 30, 2021
The reason this is newsworthy is that the top 10s are so often dominated by brand new titles or recently added licensed titles. If we look at this week’s global top 10s for instance, you can see that on the global movies list, nearly every title featured was added to Netflix over the past month.
It also demonstrates how interconnected universes are super valuable although they’ve not always panned out for Netflix. Recent examples include Altered Carbon and Bright which did not see the same sort of resurgence as we’ve seen here.
It’s not just the Netflix top 10s where the original movie is seeing a bump in popularity either. IMDb’s MovieMeter saw the movie rank 183 for the week ending October 31st up 528 places from the week before. Given Army of Thieves had only been released for 2 days at that point, we’re expecting that to rise further next week.
Did you rewatch Army of the Dead after or before watching Army of Thieves? Let us know down below.