Lucifer And Army Of The Dead Top Nielsens As Cruella Debuts On Disney+ – Forbes

ARMY OF THE DEAD - (L-R) NORA ARNEZEDER as LILLY, SAMANTHA WIN as CHAMBERS, ANA DE LA REGUERA as CRUZ, DAVE BAUTISTA as SCOTT WARD and OMARI HARDWICK as VANDEROHE.

Okay, now Im impressed. In its second weekend/first full week on Netflix, Zack Snyders Army of the Dead topped the Nielsen movie charts (for the week of May 24 through May 30) with 786 million minutes viewed. Thats a modest drop of just 14% from the 913 million minutes earned upon its debut weekend. That translates into around 5.614 million viewings of the 148-minute film (presuming they stopped at 140 minutes when the credits began). Forgive the very loose math, but that translates into around 12.13 million complete viewings in its first ten days on Netflix, which would be (at $9.37 a ticket) around $114 million in ten days.

No, I know its not an apples to apples comparison. One household could mean an entire family of five (whose tickets would each cost on average $9.37) and any number of subscribers might be the sort who absolutely would not trek to the theaters to see a $90 million, R-rated, 148-minute original zombie actioner but would watch it for free at home on Netflix. Nonetheless, the small drop from the first weekend to the first full week is promising, especially as Netflix wants to turn this into a franchise and Snyder would like to turn this into his own little Star Wars/Avatar/Alien-style playground.

Superman takes flight in Zack Snyder's 'Justice League'

It will be interesting to track this one over the next few weeks (or over the previous few weeks, since these Nielsen lists are from a month prior), as those sampling the film clearly like it. That makes sense, as A) Zack Snyder obviously has a deeply passionate fanbase and B) I would argue Army of the Dead, which I saw theatrically during its week-long engagement at Cinemark, is one of Netflixs better make a Hollywood-style blockbuster original films. However, the size of apparent engagement compared to what seems to be smaller viewership for Justice League seems to go toward a platform-specific result.

Roku argued last week that more folks had sampled the Quibi shows which they had acquired in the first few days on the Roku platform (which has 54 million active accounts) than had watched them in Quibis short six-month lifespan. The problem was never the content, which boasted star power and solid production values, but rather the weird way in which it was offered. Part of the point of streaming is that you can watch what you want where and how you want to watch it. The key was watch what you want how you want not watch stuff only on your phone.

Liam Hemsworth and Christoph Waltz in Quibi's 'The Most Dangerous Game'

Now that folks can watch Sam Raimis 50 States of Fright, Kevin Harts Die Hart, Anna Kendricks Dummy and other comedies, thrillers and reality shows on a television, and without having to use a phone (and wait the next day for the next ten-minute chapter), well, the shows are somewhat popular. And yeah, that lots of people use Roku means that the content is going to be advertised front-and-center to a lot more people. Nonetheless, Quibi might have had a better shot had they offered the whole show (essentially 75-105-minute movies) in one shot, especially as the pandemic was depriving us of new movies.

Its a somewhat scary thought, that a new movie could look like a monster hit entirely due to the service on which it premieres, but thats where we are until the playing field levels. Army of the Dead is huge, and Lucifer season five part two (tops that week with 1.284 billion minutes) partially because its the newest shiny thing on the most popular platform. Nonetheless, even noting the Netflix advantage, the legs for Army of the Dead means that plenty of subscribers are watching it and liking it, a key component for the anime prequel and various other offshoots in the pipeline.

Cruella

Greys Anatomy and Criminal Minds were tops among third-party shows, while the third season of Universals (pretty damn good) Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous nabbed 495 million minutes, with maybe four million from my ten-year-old. Poor Jupiters Legacy dropped like a rock on week three, earning just 214 million minutes and thus explaining the $200 million shows cancellation. Cruella debuted on Disney+ (for an extra $30) with 280 million minutes viewed (compared to 355 million for the 107-minute Raya and the Last Dragon in March). That translates to around 2.65 million viewings and (presuming each viewing of the 134-minute feature is a different paying household) possibly/theoretically $80 million in raw revenue.

Yes, thats fun with math (maybe it was just 500,000 subscribers watching it a lot). If the 2.65 million x $29.99 math is even remotely close to the truth then theres a good reason why Disney is sticking with the Premier Access gimmick at least until Shang-Chi on Labor Day. The presumption is that those who bought the Emma Stone-led flick did so over Memorial Day weekend, but even so I'll be curious to see the legs for this one. And yes, it is annoying to get a viewership estimate that could mean around $15 million in revenue or $80 million in revenue without much more than a presumption that it's closer to the former.

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Lucifer And Army Of The Dead Top Nielsens As Cruella Debuts On Disney+ - Forbes