The Power of the Dog and Don’t Look Up rode to strong numbers in their separate streaming debuts.
Directed by Jane Campion, Power of the Dog scored 209 million minutes of viewing time in the U.S. for the week of Dec. 6-12, making it the most watched specialty film of the frame, according to Nielsen.
The previous week, the Benedict Cumberbatch-starring Western debuted at No. 1 with an impressive 470 million minutes of viewing time, according to Nielsen’s chart for Nov. 29-Dec. 5.
Nielsen’s streaming ratings, which are delayed by roughly a month, cover viewing on TV sets and don’t include content watched on computers or mobile devices. And the ratings only include Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu, Netflix and Prime Video.
Unlike box office grosses — which studios have released for decades — streaming numbers for movies have been hard to come by. Netflix changed this dynamic in a major way when recently announcing it would begin posting “hours viewed” on a weekly basis for all of its television series and movies across the globe.
It’s impossible to verify those numbers, or to compare them to Nielsen, since Nielsen only covers the U.S. (roughly two-thirds of Netflix subscribers are in other countries). Also, Nielsen reports in minutes viewed, versus hours.
For its part, Netflix reports that Power of the Dog scored 27.2 million hours of viewing time for the week of Nov. 29-Dec. 5 to come in No. 1, and 13.3 million hours the following week to come in No. 4. (In minutes viewed, that would equal 1.62 million and 798 million, respectively.)
Power of the Dog is one of several original Netflix films competing in this year’s Oscar race. Another is Adam McKay’s star-studded Don’t Look Up, which launched on the streamer Dec. 24.
Per Netflix data, Don’t Look Up is already one of its most viewed titles ever, scoring 263.3 million hours of viewing time to almost match Bird Box (282 million minutes), the No. 2 most viewed Netflix film of all time. Red Notice (364 million hours) is No. 1. Don’t Look Up‘s total includes 152.3 million hours for the week of Dec. 27-Jan. 3, the top weekly number for any Netflix film.
Don’t Look Up won’t pop up on Nielsen until later in January.
Nielsen’s top 10 streaming movies for the week of Dec. 6-12 are below. Original films are marked with an asterisk. Home Alone and classic Christmas titles dominated overall.
1. Home Alone (Disney), 307 million minutes viewed
2. Elf (Hulu), 355 million
3. Red Notice (Netflix), 280 million
4. A Boy Called Christmas (Netflix), 226 million
5. Shang-Chi and the Leged of the The Ten Rings (Disney+), 211 million
6. The Power of the Dog* (Netflix), 209 million
7. The Shack (Netflix), 202 million
8. The Christmas Chronicles (Netflix), 155 million
9. The Santa Claus (Netflix), 144 million
10. Home Alone 2: Lost in New New York (Disney+), 184 million
Source: Hollywood
