Despite rare strong critical praise for a Netflix show (91% on Rotten Tomatoes), producer Mike Flannigan’s miniseries adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher debuted to a middling 51.9 million total viewing hours and 6.3 million total views, good enough for only second place on Netflix's global platform for the week of October 9-15.
For whatever context this might offer, back in January, The Pale Blue Eyes -- a one-part fictional movie starring Christian Bale as a detective who enlists a young misfit U.S. military academy cadet named Edgar Allan Poe to help him solve a murder -- generated nearly 43 million viewing hours in its premiere week.
For the second straight week, a limited series focused on the life and career of Euro soccer legend David Beckham was Netflix's No. 1 English-language series, finishing with 54.9 million viewing hours and holding most of its week 1 audience.
Sex Education: Season 4 continued to fall through the rankings, ending last week with only 32.7 million viewing hours compared to its 97.6 million-hour premiere week last month.
Last week's rankings: Sundance Sensation ‘Fair Play’ Suffers Foul Premiere — Netflix Weekly Rankings for October 2-8
In its second week on Netflix, filmmaker's Chloe Domont’s cinematic exploration of workplace and relationship gender roles, Fair Play built on its humble audience, landing 26.9 million viewing hours and 14 million views.
Nominated for best U.S. picture at 2023’s Sundance Film Festivals, the film was acquired by Netflix in January for a reported $20 million. But it's tepid Netlfix premiere so far has compared unfavorably to past Netflix festival pickups, including Ana De Armas’ Blonde, which earned over 37 million viewing hours in its first week last October.
Fair Play failed to unseat dark detective thriller Reptile, which once again finished as Netflix's most-watched English-language film title.
Reptile, a murder mystery starring Benicio Del Toro, Alicia Silverstone and Justin Timberlake, generated 32.3 million viewing hours and 14.2 million total views in its third week on Netflix.
On the bright side, French mystery thriller Lupin: Part 3 grew its audience by 14 million views, ending its second week on the rankings with nearly 78 million viewing hours. That made it far and away the most watched show on Netflix last week.
The series, which retells the classic French story of Arsène Lupin, a gentleman thief and master of disguise, has yet to be renewed for a fourth season.
But according to co-creator George Kay, public response will be a significant factor— and with engagement numbers like this from a foreign series, audiences are certainly reacting.
In fact, all three parts of the series made Netflix’s top 10 non-English TV ranking for the second consecutive week.
Catch-up viewing for the series has actually increased over the last two weeks, with 18.7 million hours for part qand 16.1 million hours for part 2 landing them the No. 2 and No. 4 spots in Netflix's non-English series category, respectively.
On the international film side, South Korean action thriller Ballerina climbed the rankings and took the top spot with just 23.1 million views. Ballerina narrowly unseated Spanish drama Nowhere after the film spent two weeks in the number one seat.
Directed by Lee Chung-hyeon, Ballerina sees tortured protagonist Ok-ju (played by Jun Jong-Seo) become a vigilante overnight after finding the body of her dancer best friend.
