The Gray Man – Picture: Netflix
The Gray Man is one of Netflix’s biggest productions to date and many had high hopes that it’d make waves to become one of Netflix’s biggest all-time hits. Despite a good start, it doesn’t look like it’ll be enough to reach the heights of Red Notice or Don’t Look Up.
Debuting on July 22nd, The Gray Man has been Netflix’s big movie for summer 2022. It featured an all-star cast with Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling being the two lead stars and it had the Russo Brothers directing. Most people know the movie for carrying the extraordinary price tag of costing over $200 million.
So how well is The Gray Man performing on Netflix and is it pulling in the numbers to beat either Red Notice or Don’t Look Up.
As a recap, here’s what the top 10 movies (in terms of hours watched in the first 28 days) look like as of August 5th, 2022:
- Red Notice – 364,020,000
- Don’t Look Up – 359,790,000
- Bird Box – 282,020,000
- The Adam Project – 233,160,000
- Extraction – 231,340,000
- The Unforgivable – 214,700,000
- The Irishman – 214,570,000
- The Kissing Booth 2 – 209,250,000
- 6 Underground – 205,470,000
- Spenser Confidential – 197,320,000
So far, the answer is that The Gray Man isn’t pulling in the numbers to get it up to the first position.
Over a 2 week period between July 17th and July 31st, the movie has been watched for 185.02 million hours on Netflix globally.
| Week Period | Hours Viewed(M) | Week Rank | Weeks in Top 10 |
|---|---|---|---|
| July 17th, 2022 to July 24th, 2022 | 88,550,000 | 1 | 1 |
| July 24th, 2022 to July 31st, 2022 | 96,470,000 (+9%) | 1 | 2 |
The opening weekend difference between Red Notice is the best indicator that it’s unlikely The Gray Man to hit the top spot. The movie pulled in nearly half of the 148.72 million hours that Red Notice achieved.
It was also less than both The Adam Project and Don’t Look Up, although while The Adam Project dropped in week 2, The Gray Man gained.
Hourly data graph for The Gray Man vs Red Notice vs Don’t Look Up vs The Adam Project
What’s on Netflix contributor Frederic, who also runs the Netflix tracking substack Netflix and Chiffres, is expecting around a 60% drop for week 3 and a further 30% drop in week 4.
Using those numbers would mean roughly 38,588,000 hours for week 3 and 27,011,600 for week 4.
Given this trajectory, we’re currently expecting The Gray Man to become the third or fourth biggest Netflix movie release based on Netflix’s self-reported figures. That would place the movie just ahead or behind Bird Box.
Why did Don’t Look Up and Red Notice perform so well?
This question no doubt has a million different answers, which mostly come down to subjective opinions. You could argue Red Notice ultimately had more star power.
One reason on the strategy side could be when these two movies were released, Don’t Look Up especially. That movie saw a huge gain in its second week, right around the holiday season when people would’ve been at home.
As you may know, The Gray Man had a theatrical release a week before its Netflix debut. Did this have any impact on viewing numbers? The answer is we don’t know but it seems unlikely. Netflix doesn’t release any box office revenues so it’s impossible to say how many went to watch the movie in cinemas instead of on Netflix but it is worthy of note.
Clearly, however, The Gray Man has done enough for Netflix to be deemed successful with a spin-off and a sequel announced the week following its launch.
What could be Netflix’s next big movie to beat out Red Notice? That’s a tricky question but our guess would be Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (aka Knives Out 2) has the biggest chance of the Fall 2022 releases at least.
Did you watch The Gray Man on Netflix? What did you think? Let us know in the comments.