Wonder Woman 1984, which debuted on HBO Max on Christmas Day at the same time it hit theaters, topped Nielsen’s updated U.S. streaming chart for the week of December 21 to 27.
Nielsen has not officially begun measuring WarnerMedia’s streaming service, but it provided a revision of last week’s regular rankings, saying WW84 racked up 2.252 billion minutes of streaming. That was 35% better than Pixar’s Soul, which drew almost 1.7 billion minutes on Disney+. It was also 85% ahead of red-hot Bridgerton, which Netflix this week anointed as its most-streamed original show.
Running time shouldn’t be discounted as a factor. WW84 is 2 hours 35 minutes, more than 45 minutes longer than Soul.
On the revised chart, five of the top 10 weekly entries were feature films, a split reflecting the direction of content distribution as Covid-19 keeps movie theaters closed in LA, New York and many other markets. WarnerMedia plans to release the entire 2021 Warner Bros slate on HBO Max in parallel with theaters. Determining what exactly the big streaming start means to the economic performance of the film is a nearly impossible task. It is approaching $150 million at the global box office, but has declined quickly, unsurprisingly given the many territories still battling Covid outbreaks.
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WarnerMedia parent AT&T said earlier this week that HBO Max activations doubled in the fourth quarter to 17.2 million, a surge it credited in part to the release of WW84. The company did not break out any of its own viewership data on the film.
In a statement provided by Nielsen, HBO Max EVP and GM Andy Forssell called the release “a huge holiday gift to the consumer at a time when they wanted and needed it.”
Nielsen’s rankings track only streaming through a TV set, excluding mobile streams, and data is released after a lengthy delay by arrangement with the services being measured. HBO Max is operational in the U.S. only at this point, but it will expand to Latin America and parts of Europe later this year. Nielsen thus far measures only Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and Disney+, but the company has indicated it will soon officially add HBO Max and NBCUniversal’s Peacock to its regular rotation.
Here is the revised Nielsen weekly U.S. streaming chart:
Wonder Woman 1984 (HBO Max, film, 2.3B total minutes)
Soul (Disney+, film, 1.7B min.)
The Office (Netflix, 192 episodes, 1.4B min.)
Bridgerton (Netflix, 8 eps., 1.2B min.)
The Midnight Sky (Netflix, film, 1.1B min.)
The Mandalorian (Disney+, 16 eps., 1B min.)
How the Grinch Stole Xmas (Netflix, film, 705M min.)
The Crown (40 eps., 700M min.)
Grey’s Anatomy (Netflix, 366 eps., 691M min.)
Christmas Chronicles 2 (Netflix, film, 660M min.)