The Electric State’s First Week on Netflix Doesn’t Bode Well

There aren’t many scenarios when 25 million people viewing something can be seen as a bad thing, but there aren’t many $300 million movies that don’t have paying customers either. In both cases though, we’re referring to The Electric State, the new film from the Russo Brothers starring Chris Pratt and Milly Bobby Brown. It reportedly cost over $300 million to make, and during its first week on Netflix, racked up 25.2 million views.

That’s a huge number to be sure, and it easily made The Electric State Netflix’s top movie in the world this week. However, What’s On Netflix took that number and compared it to similar Netflix films, and when you do that, it looks much worse by comparison.

For example, Red Notice—another star-studded, expensive, blockbuster-type film—had 75.6 million views in its first week. That’s the most of all time for the streamer. Don’t Look Up, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, had 46.6 million views, and even the Russos’ previous big Netflix film, The Gray Man, which starred Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling, had 41.2 million views during its first week. (Of note, Netflix counts “views” as total hours viewed, divided by the runtime.)

So where does 25.2 put The Electric State? Well, it’s 15th all-time in terms of views during its first week, narrowly beating Rebel Moon: Part One and Rebel Moon: Part Two. Not exactly the best company. Of course, 15th all-time in anything sounds incredibly impressive but when you have a film by two of the most successful filmmakers in history, starring two hugely popular actors, with all manner of expensive visual effects, expectations are much higher.

What On Netflix looked even further ahead and wondered, could The Electric State make its way onto the top 10 of all-time? It’s only five slots behind after its first week. Anything is possible, right? Well, a first week on Netflix is like an opening weekend in theaters. A huge percentage of your final numbers come early—and the success or failure of that opening then dictates the buzz moving ahead. Electric State already was dealing with bad reviews. It’s highly unlikely to trend upwards after its big opening week. Things usually go the opposite way.

At the end of the day, it certainly feels like early buzz hurt the numbers behind The Electric State. Which is a little shocking because it’s not like Red Notice got a lot of good reviews. Or The Gray Man. The Electric State isn’t great by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a perfectly watchable movie to throw on and not pay attention to. However, it seems like it’s not even getting that.

Are you one of the 25.2 million? What did you think of the film? Let us know below.

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