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Netflix's Adam Sandler movies are sucking us in more than ever

The company reveals how much we binge its originals like Murder Mystery, The Perfect Date, Always Be My Maybe, Our Planet and When They See Us.

Joan E. Solsman Former Senior Reporter
Joan E. Solsman was CNET's senior media reporter, covering the intersection of entertainment and technology. She's reported from locations spanning from Disneyland to Serbian refugee camps, and she previously wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. She bikes to get almost everywhere and has been doored only once.
Expertise Streaming video, film, television and music; virtual, augmented and mixed reality; deep fakes and synthetic media; content moderation and misinformation online Credentials
  • Three Folio Eddie award wins: 2018 science & technology writing (Cartoon bunnies are hacking your brain), 2021 analysis (Deepfakes' election threat isn't what you'd think) and 2022 culture article (Apple's CODA Takes You Into an Inner World of Sign)
Joan E. Solsman
4 min read
MURDER MYSTERY

Adam Sandler plays an ex-cop and Jennifer Aniston is his wife in Murder Mystery. 

Scott Yamano/Netflix

Netflix has lost US subscribers for the first time since it began making its own shows, but that didn't stop the streaming giant from dropping new figures about how many people have been sucked into its Adam Sandler vortex. (Spoiler: more than ever). The company also released viewership stats about The Perfect Date, Always Be My Maybe, Our Planet, When They See Us and other originals.

Netflix's subscriber growth took a beating in the last quarter because of price increases and a snoozier release slate before its hit retro sci-fi series Stranger Things came out in July, the company said Wednesday. But that didn't break Netflix of its new addiction to spilling viewership figures. Once upon a time, Netflix was famously stingy on the specifics of how many people watch its stuff. The creator of House of Cards -- the Netflix show that put its original content efforts on the map -- once said the company wouldn't even share viewership metrics with him. 

But lately Netflix has loosened up to help it recruit talent and drive buzz. 

Netflix used to woo Hollywood's big names with its giant checkbook, but as companies like  Apple Amazon  and Disney pour money into high-end originals for their own streaming services, Netflix has needed additional enticements. Bragging about eye-popping audience numbers gives talent another consideration. With more than 150 million subscribers, Netflix distribution is unmatched in streaming, so it has become more chatty about viewership stats. 

Also, a lot of us are sheeple and we'll just watch the same thing all the other binge zombies are watching. Netflix's top content executive, Ted Sarandos, said Wednesday that Netflix is releasing these stats publicly and testing features like a Top Ten list of UK viewership "mostly because people use a lot of different inputs to figure out what they want to see, and popularity is definitely one of them." Product chief Greg Peters also said that people who show a tendency to watch Netflix's most popular stuff would be algorithmically recommended to more of it. 

Still, Netflix's viewership numbers all need disclaimers. For one, Netflix's stats aren't independently verified or supported by detailed data from the company. Traditional media companies have their box office performance independently monitored and are at the mercy of Nielsen ratings as the barometer for TV shows. Netflix can cherrypick highlights, without much outside data to compare. 

Also, Netflix's viewership statistics aren't apples-to-apples comparisons to... well, to just about anything. It's tempting to compare Netflix's data to Nielsen audience numbers for TV or box-office figures for movies. Don't do it. They don't sync. Just...don't.

Bring on the 'hits'

Stranger Things has been Netflix's most record-breaking original of late.  

To put that in context, Stranger Things got nearly as much viewership in four days that Bird Box -- Netflix last big brag about audience -- generated in seven. 

But the company had plenty of other nuggets to share about other projects. All the following figures are for the titles' first four weeks of release: 

  • Murder Mystery, its movie starring comedian Sandler and Jennifer Aniston as a couple whose European vacation is ruined when they're blamed for a billionaire's murder on a yacht, is the most watched Sandler Netflix original film yet. More than 73 million account households watched it. (Bird Box still has it beat but barely: The post-apocalyptic thriller starring Sandra Bullock was watched by more than 80 million households in the first four weeks.)
  • Teen rom-com The Perfect Date, a vehicle for Netflix-minted heart-throb Noah Centineo, drew in 48 million households. 
  • Our Planet, a BBC-style nature documentary, was the company's most-watched original docu-series at 33 million households. 
  • Closely following that, Always Be My Maybe, a comedy film with Ali Wong and Randall Park was viewed by 32 million households.
  • Dead to Me, a dramedy, hit 30 million households. 
  • When They See Us, a buzzy limited series from creator Ava DuVernay about the Central Park Five case of wrongful imprisonment, was watched by 25 million households in its first four weeks.

Netflix counts a movie view after an account watches 70 percent of the full runtime. For TV shows, an account needs to watch 70 percent of a single episode.

Here are previous viewerships stats Netflix has released (or projected) about the first four weeks of release for other titles: 

  • Bird Box -- watched by more than 80 million households 
  • You, a stalker thriller series that originally aired on Lifetime in the fall -- estimated to surpass 40 million homes
  • Sex Education, a British teen dramedy show -- estimated to surpass 40 million households
  • Bodyguard, a BBC-World Productions series that has already aired in the UK and won a best actor Golden Globe for drama earlier this month -- 23 million member households
  • Spanish-language teen drama series Élite -- more than 20 million member households 
  • Italian original series Baby -- more than 10 million homes
  • The Protector, Netflix's first Turkish original series --- more than 10 million households

Originally published July 17.
Updated July 18: Adds comment from product executive and other details.