When you debut a new movie starring a major A-lister like Jennifer Lopez on streaming, it’s likely to be successful, and that was the case with Netflix’s new action-thriller “The Mother.” It debuted atop the Netflix Top 10 (Week of May 8) viewing chart, far ahead of the second-place film “A Man Called Otto.” Read on for more analysis.
Directed by Niki Caro (“Whale Rider,” “Mulan”), Lopez’s “The Mother” hit the streamer on Friday and managed to rack up 83.7 million global viewing hours to top the English film chart over a number of non-Netflix movies. It was the #1 film in the U.S. and Canada, as well as 80 other countries, and it was in the top 10 in 93 countries total.
Tom Hanks‘ “A Man Called Otto” dropped to second place with 19.9 million hours viewed, followed by DreamWorks Animation’s 10-year-old animated film “The Croods” with 8.7 million hours viewed.
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Shonda Rhimes‘ “Bridgerton” spin-off, “Queen Charlotte,” remained ahead in the English TV series chart with 158.7 million hours viewed, which should get it into Netflix’s all-time Top 10 watched shows sometime this month. The second seasons of “Firefly Lane” and “Sweet Tooth” followed with 31.9 million and 27.6 million hours viewed, respectively. Season 1 of “Missing: Dead or Alive?” debuted in fourth place with almost 24 million hours viewed, while Jada Pinkett Smith‘s “Queen Cleopatra” docuseries entered the TV charts in seventh place with 20.2 million hours viewed.
The Mexican comedy “¡Que viva México!” burst into the charts in first place with 19.5 million hours viewed, and unsurprisingly, the #1 movie in Mexico. The French action-adventure “AKA” dropped to second place with 16.6 million viewing hours. Other new non-English films entering the chart include the Hindi legal drama “Mrs. Chatterjee vs Norway” with 6.6 million viewing hours, and (coincidentally) Norwegian drama “Royalteen: Princess Margrethe” with just over 6 hours.
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Season 1 of the apocalyptic Korean action series “Black Knight” burst into the non-English TV charts in first place with 31.2 million hours viewed, although it wasn’t the #1 watched show in many Asian countries. That honor belonged to the first season of Korean drama “Doctor Cha,” which was the #1 watched show in South Korea, Hong Kong, and a few other regions with 19.8 million hours viewed total. Turkish drama “The Tailor” followed in third place with 15.8 million hours viewed, with both seasons of the Colombian drama “The Marked Heart” continuing to do well, while the first season of Korean drama “The Good Bad Mother” moved up the ranks to fifth place with 12.2 million hours viewed. Even without a new season of “Squid Game” ready to deliver, South Korea continues to be a region that has been quite successful for Netflix.
Hitting the streamer this week are documentaries “Anna Nicole Smith: You Don’t Know Me,” “McGregor Forever” (about UFC champ Conor McGregor), and “Working: What We Do All Day.” The Dutch thriller “Faithfully Yours” also hits Netflix, as does the Polish coming-of-age drama “Fanfic.”
Check back every Tuesday afternoon to see how the new series and films hitting Netflix are doing.
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