Back in 2019, Netflix released data claiming that 45 million accounts – nearly a third of its total subscribers – had streamed the Sandra Bullock thriller Bird Box in its first week on the platform, a record for a Netflix film.
At face value that statistic was extraordinary. All things being equal, had the Susanne Bier-directed film been released in cinemas, it would have racked up nearly half a billion pounds in just one week based on an average ticket price of £10.
That record has since been surpassed by the 2021 comedy action movie Red Notice, which notched up 328.8 million viewing hours and has been seen by over 50 percent of all Netflix users. As reported by Screencrush, Bird Box took four weeks to rack up its 282 million viewing hours. In contrast, Red Notice surpassed that total in just 18 days.
It was proof of the soaring demand to stream movies at home and equally of the importance to streamers of securing original must-see content.
As for the effect on traditional moviegoing…
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