Saving Bikini Bottom, Simone Biles Rising and A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder – Pictures: Netflix
It was a big week in the top 10s, and what didn’t feature in the global top 40 made just as many headlines as what did. We’re going to break down all the big stories from the past week’s Netflix top 10s sourced from the Netflix top 10 site below.
Note: In this report of Netflix’s hours viewed from July 29th, 2024 to August 4th, 2024, we’ll use “Complete Viewings Equivalent,” or CVE, expressed in millions. That means we divide the hours viewed announced by Netflix by the runtime of films or series. It allows for better comparisons between films and series, but it’s not an audience metric. It is the minimum number of viewings if they were all complete from the first second to the last of the film or season.
1. Is this the end of the line for the Rebel Moon universe?
In the programming doldrums of the middle of summer, Netflix decided to release on the same day the two directors’ cut of Rebel Moon films, and neither of them managed to get at least 3.6M CVEs in their first 3 days. The second film was the only film of the two to enter any international weekly Top 10 in Romania, Nigeria, and South Korea in its debut week. If you needed me to spell it out, that’s not good for the universe built by Zack Snyder, who reportedly had a vision of 6 films.
We have had four Rebel Moon films in the past eight months, each doing worse than the last. The first one did okay numbers, good enough to be at the bottom of the Top 10 Netflix US films of 2023, but the sequel showed a very steep decay in viewership.
The lack of interest from Netflix subscribers in this universe will almost surely put an end to Rebel Moon and I would be extremely surprised if Netflix ordered a third film based on those numbers.
2. Simone Biles keeps rising indeed.
The docuseries Simone Biles Rising is having a blast in the charts following the successes of the American gymnast at the Paris 2024 Olympics. The program rose by +10% in its third week, something never seen before for any docuseries. That’s another gold medal for her.
3. Find Me Falling is not exactly a hit.
Now, sure, nobody expected a rom-com starring Harry Connick Jr to do fantastic numbers, but after its first 14 days, Find Me Falling seems a bit weak, netting 34.2M CVEs, good enough to be the 11th-best launch of the year for an English-speaking Netflix film.
4. Spongebob is still a draw for audiences
On a brighter note, the animated film Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie shows that Spongebob Squarepants is still an IP that counts in the streaming game.
The film did a very good launch with 12.6M CVEs over its first three days. That’s the fourth-best launch for any animated film released by Netflix on a Friday since June 2021, sitting comfortably between Vivo and Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget.
5. An update on Cobra Kai and Too Hot to Handle.
The first part of the sixth and final season of Cobra Kai should have gone with a bang but it’s actually the opposite we are seeing as it is trending considerably lower than the previous two seasons.
You can blame the staggered release or the fact that it is very (very) rare for a series to grow its audience beyond season 3, but the decision to end the series after this season was probably wise.
Another show that is losing steam is the TV reality show Too Hot to Handle, as season 6 ended its weekly rollout with 6.3M CVEs, down from the previous two seasons but with a lower decay rate than Cobra Kai.
6. Nothing compares to A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder.
No, I’m not talking about its quality, but just the fact that the latest co-production between Netflix and the BBC is not available globally on Netflix, hence making comparisons more difficult with series that were released globally. It’s not available in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand, quite a slew of territories that could have propeled it way higher than the 7.4M CVEs it got over its first four days.
That said, 7.4M CVEs is not bad at all, considering it’s better than the launch of a lot of other British series, such as One Day, Eric, and Bodies.
7. Unsolved Mysteries flounders but is renewed nonetheless.
The fourth season of the docuseries Unsolved Mysteries (one of the most unsatisfying watching experiences, as those mysteries really are unsolved) returned last week to lackluster numbers. The latest season scored only 3.1M CVEs over its first five days, the worst launch for any true crime docuseries released by Netflix in 2024.
It was, however, renewed for a fifth season, so someone must be happy with this at Netflix.
8. Isn’t Joe Rogan supposed to be a superstar?
Considered to be the biggest podcaster in the world, Joe Rogan had the honor of having a live show on Netflix last week. Well, its numbers are somewhat disappointing: Only 2.5M CVEs for its first hours, considerably less than what comic Katt Williams got three months ago in the same time slot for its live show.
That’s all for this week. Please let us know what you think in the comments below.