The people have voted with their remotes.
Hey, have you seen Bird Box yet?
Sandra Bullock’s new Netflix thriller arrived on the streaming giant last weekend, quickly drawing comparisons to mega-popular horror A Quiet Place.
Reviews have been quite mixed, with the movie currently sporting a 66% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 99 professional write-ups.
Based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Josh Malerman, Bird Box tells the story of a woman and two children who must trek through a haunted forest and river whilst blindfolded in order to avoid the supernatural perils within.
As noted, the critical response has been a bit of a mixed bag but one thing does seem to be certain if Netflix is to be believed; a hell of a lot of people have watched it so far.
Netflix is known for not releasing streaming data to the point that the service is notoriously selective about what information it does provide, so this is a rare enough move from them.
The official Netflix Film profile tweeted out that 45,037,125 accounts have watched Bird Box since its arrival on the platform, citing the “best first seven days ever” for a Netflix film.
Took off my blindfold this morning to discover that 45,037,125 Netflix accounts have already watched Bird Box — best first 7 days ever for a Netflix film! pic.twitter.com/uorU3cSzHR
— Netflix Tudum (@NetflixTudum) December 28, 2018
Honestly, it’s hard to know what that really means.
Netflix’s retention of its data essentially means that one has to take this information at face value and it’s generally hard to gauge what “does well” on the service outside of social media reaction.
It is reflective of modern trends, though, in that a $90 million blockbuster like Bright can be critically mauled yet still see a sequel quickly confirmed thanks to an apparently strong and positive audience response.
Meanwhile, an event like Black Mirror’s interactive Bandersnatch episode is clearly designed to further change how we consume media, even going as far as to cutely incorporate Netflix itself along the way.
Add in the fact that Bird Box immediately resulted in a flood of memes and it all speaks to an ever-changing landscape for movie and TV lovers, if an admittedly confusing one at times.
If you want to get your maths on; 45 million accounts working out at a $10 cinema ticket each, Netflix might see this as the equivalent of $450 million in its opening week.
Not bad, but would you leave the couch for it?
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