Pictured: The Decameron, Elite, Non-Negotiable / Netflix
Welcome to a slightly belated (Kasey’s fault) Netflix top 10 report that will examine the Netflix viewing figures for all recent releases. This week, we’ll cover The Decameron’s and Non-Negotiable’s premieres alongside the final season of Elite. We’ll also check in with Under Paris and Vikings: Valhalla, plus lots more.
As a reminder, every Tuesday, Netflix updates its top 10 stats page with 40 new hourly figures of the top movies and shows of the past seven days. If you want to browse the top 10 hourly data easily, visit our tool, which contains data from these weekly reports, the Netflix engagement report for 2023, Nielsen data, and SambaTV data.
Note: In this report of Netflix’s hours viewed from July 22nd, 2024 to July 28th, 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. Elite is not an elite series for Netflix any more.
The Spanish series Elite feels now like a relic of the past, a time capsule of how Netflix was in 2018 when the first season was released. We only have very partial numbers for how the first seasons did globally, but it managed to get renewed through to season 8, which gives us a clue as to how big a success it was. And I use the past tense here because, for at least three seasons now, Elite has been demoted basically to a B-tier Netflix series as each launch got worse than the last.
Season 8 launched to 2.4M CVEs in its first three days, a far cry from the launch of season 5 (8.2M) and presumably even worse than the launch of the past season. When did Elite peak? It’s hard to say, but based on the partial numbers we have, season 3 was in the all-time Top 10 at some point, something the previous seasons did not, so it is fair to assume that season 3 was peak Elite.
After 8 seasons, Elite ended with a whimper, one of the last legacy series from the Netflix pre-streaming wars.
2. Under Paris might end up above Troll in the end.
As the Olympic Games are happening in Paris right now, another race is playing out in the charts. Sharkfest film Under Paris has been in the race for its first 91 days and has a place on the podium of the most-watched international Netflix films ever. Will it finish third or second as it tries to take on Spanish critical darling Society of the Snow? Well, a new look at the race shows that Under Paris still has a shot at the top spot, as Troll’s lead is fading week after week.
This race will continue for 35 days, but it will be fascinating to watch (for data nerds like us).
3. Non-Negotiable is a hit from Mexico.
Hits from Latin America are rare, but Non-Negotiable is just that. It launched with 7.2M CVEs after its first three days, the second-best launch for a Latin American Netflix film released on a Friday.
4. Wonderland is no wonder in the charts.
As Latin America rises, South Korea fades as its latest Netflix film, Wonderland, crashes and burns on landing, scoring just 1.5M CVEs over its first three days. This is the worst launch on record for a South Korean film released on a Friday since June 2021, and by quite some distance!
5. The Decameron flopped hard.
The blood was in the water as Netflix quietly added the “Limited series” label to The Decameron last week, shielding it from a very public cancelation and showing that Netflix must have known the series would flop. And it did, with just 2.1M CVEs for its first 4 days, the worst launch of any limited series on record in 2024, even behind international titles such as Norwegian Midsummer Night.
Now, how could Netflix have known it would be a flop beforehand? We used to write here that the public wants what the public wants, no matter what Netflix wants them to watch, but surely, the streamer must have data showing the number of subscribers who watched the trailer and decided to add it to their list. If, let’s say, 50 million subscribers watched the trailer on Netflix and only 2 million decided to add it to their list, that gives you some insight into how the title will fare when it’s released. That’s just conjecture, but the fact that Netflix is using more and the “Limited Series” relabeling series shows that it cares about how its decision not to renew a series will be seen.
6. Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam is not climbing the charts.
The true-crime docuseries Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam had an average launch, with just 5.6M CVEs during its first five days. That’s a no-hit right there.
7. Vikings: Valhalla is not ascending anywhere.
Season 3 of Vikings: Valhalla is in its third week in the charts, giving us a better look at how it fared compared to the previous two seasons. And well, like Elite and the majority of Netflix series, its audience shrank season after season as season 3 scored 13.4M CVEs after 14 days, far from the 32.5M gained by season 1.
Unless you’re Stranger Things, Bridgerton, Ginny & Georgia or Outer Banks, the decay train for Netflix series is not stopping.