Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino, is a top-tier Oscar contender. It’s longer running time and high budget are often box office killers as far as studios are concerned, but the crime epic is a feather in Netflix’s cap this Academy Award season. While Netflix often doesn’t release a lot of viewership information, Nielsen’s recently-released Subscription Video On Demand Content Ratings have revealed some interesting facts about the film’s performance so far.
The Irishman released on the streaming service on 11/27, and across its first five days of availability the film attained an average minute audience for each day of ~13.2 million viewers, with the third day being the largest individual day at 3.1 million viewers. On day one it netted a strong debut of ~2.6 million U.S. P2+ viewers.
Each day of the long weekend has a steady amount of viewers, and the average minute audience for each day was about 2 million viewers. On the premiere day, around 751 thousand U.S. viewers (18% of its viewers for the day) viewed the film in its entirety. The largest day for watching the film in its entirety was Friday 11/29, with 930 thousand watching the full film.
Nielsen’s offered some comparisons between the premiere and other high-profile Netflix Originals:
- Premiere Day Average Minute Audience
- El Camino: 2.6 million
- Bird Box: 2.9 million
- First Five Days Average Minute Audience:
- The Irishman: 13.2 million
- El Camino: 8.2 million
- Bird Box: 16.9 million
The audience demographics for The Irishman were also revealed by Nielsen’s, with the audience skewing male and older. On day one, 20% of the audience was composed of men between 50 to 64, with that demographic reflecting the largest share of viewers throughout.
These strong numbers highlight a great debut for the streaming titan, the high profile boding well for its visibility over the next months–key awards season territory.
