Netflix Jan. 17 disclosed that through its first four weeks, original movie Bird Box, starring Sandra Bullock, was streamed by more than 80 million household worldwide.
Netflix previously disclosed that the film attracted 45 million households during its first week of release. Nielsen said that included 26 million households in the United States.
The post-apocalyptic thriller from Danish director Susanne Bier reportedly had a $19.8 million production budget.
Michael Pachter, digital media analyst with Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles, says Bird Box is an isolated phenomenon.
Pachter contends that the nature of Netflix subscriptions, where the consumption of additional content bears no additional cost, makes the streaming data for Bird Box analogous to the consumption of television programming, which is also subsumed in a pay-TV subscription.
He cited the recent college football championship game with 25 million viewers and President Trump’s national address with 43 million viewers as comparable to Bird Box numbers.
“We think that each of these broadcasts is more comparable to the 26 million viewers for Bird Box, since few (if any) people subscribed to cable TV solely in order to watch either broadcast, and each program has limited (if any) replay value,” Pachter wrote in a note. “While Bird Box definitely demonstrates the power of the Netflix platform to drive viewership of its originals, it will not necessarily lead to the long-term retention of subscribers.”