The Power of the Dog and Don’t Look Up rode to strong numbers in their separate streaming debuts.
Directed by Jane Campion, Power of the Dog scored 209 million minutes of viewing time in the U.S. for the week of Dec. 6-12, making it the most watched specialty film of the frame, according to Nielsen.
The previous week, the Benedict Cumberbatch-starring Western debuted at No. 1 with an impressive 470 million minutes of viewing time, according to Nielsen’s chart for Nov. 29-Dec. 5.
Nielsen’s streaming ratings, which are delayed by roughly a month, cover viewing on TV sets and don’t include content watched on computers or mobile devices. And the ratings only include Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu, Netflix and Prime Video.
Unlike box office grosses — which studios have released for decades — streaming numbers for movies have been hard to come by. Netflix changed this dynamic in a major way when recently announcing it would begin posting “hours viewed” on a weekly basis for all of its television series and movies across the globe.
Advertisement
It’s impossible to verify those numbers, or to compare them to Nielsen, since Nielsen only covers the U.S. (roughly two-thirds of Netflix subscribers are in other countries). Also, Nielsen reports in minutes viewed, versus hours.
For its part, Netflix reports that Power of the Dog scored 27.2 million hours of viewing time for the week of Nov. 29-Dec. 5 to come in No. 1, and 13.3 million hours the following week to come in No. 4. (In minutes viewed, that would equal 1.62 million and 798 million, respectively.)
Power of the Dog is one of several original Netflix films competing in this year’s Oscar race. Another is Adam McKay’s star-studded Don’t Look Up, which launched on the streamer Dec. 24.
Per Netflix data, Don’t Look Up is already one of its most viewed titles ever, scoring 263.3 million hours of viewing time to almost match Bird Box (282 million minutes), the No. 2 most viewed Netflix film of all time. Red Notice (364 million hours) is No. 1. Don’t Look Up‘s total includes 152.3 million hours for the week of Dec. 27-Jan. 3, the top weekly number for any Netflix film.
Don’t Look Up won’t pop up on Nielsen until later in January.
Nielsen’s top 10 streaming movies for the week of Dec. 6-12 are below. Original films are marked with an asterisk. Home Alone and classic Christmas titles dominated overall.
Advertisement
1. Home Alone (Disney), 307 million minutes viewed 2. Elf (Hulu), 355 million 3. Red Notice (Netflix), 280 million 4. A Boy Called Christmas (Netflix), 226 million 5. Shang-Chi and the Leged of the The Ten Rings (Disney+), 211 million 6. The Power of the Dog* (Netflix), 209 million 7. The Shack (Netflix), 202 million 8. The Christmas Chronicles (Netflix), 155 million 9. The Santa Claus (Netflix), 144 million 10. Home Alone 2: Lost in New New York (Disney+), 184 million
Hitting the three-quarter-century mark usually means a retirement home, a nursing facility, or if you’re lucky to be blessed with relatively good health and savings to match, living in a gated community in Arizona or Florida.
For Sylvester Stallone, however, it means something else entirely: starring in the first superhero-centered film of his decades-long career in the much-delayed Samaritan. Unfortunately for Stallone and the audience on the other side of the screen, the derivative, turgid, forgettable results won’t get mentioned in a career retrospective, let alone among the ever-expanding list of must-see entries in a genre already well past its peak.
For Stallone, however, it’s better late than never when it involves the superhero genre. Maybe in getting a taste of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) with his walk-on role in the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel several years ago, Stallone thought anything Marvel can do, I can do even better (or just as good in the nebulous definition of the word).
Advertisement
The property Stallone and his team found for him, Samaritan, a little-known graphic novel released by a small, almost negligible, publisher, certainly takes advantage of Stallone’s brute-force physicality and his often underrated talent for near-monosyllabic brooding (e.g., the Rambo series), but too often gives him to little do or say as the lone super-powered survivor, the so-called “Samaritan” of the title, of a lifelong rivalry with his brother, “Nemesis.” Two brothers entered a fire-ravaged building and while both were presumed dead, one brother did survive (Stallone’s Joe Smith, a garbageman by day, an appliance repairman by night).
In the Granite City of screenwriter Bragi F. Schut (Escape Room, Season of the Witch), the United States, and presumably the rest of the world, teeters on economic and political collapse, with a recession spiraling into a depression, steady gigs difficult, if not impossible, to obtain, and the city’s neighborhoods rocked by crime and violence. No one’s safe, not even 13-year-old Sam (Javon Walker), Joe’s neighbor.
When he’s not dodging bullies connected to a gang, he’s falling under the undue influence of Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk), a low-rent gang leader with an outsized ego and the conviction that he and only he can take on Nemesis’s mantle and along with that mantle, a hammer “forged in hate,” to orchestrate a Bane-like plan to plunge the city into chaos and become a wealthy power-broker in the process.
Schut’s woefully underwritten script takes a clumsy, haphazard approach to world-building, relying on a two-minute animated sequence to open Samaritan while a naive, worshipful Sam narrates Samaritan and Nemesis’s supposedly tragic, Cain and Abel-inspired backstory. Schut and director Julius Avery (Overlord) clumsily attempt to contrast Sam’s childish belief in messiah-like, superheroic saviors stepping in to save humanity from itself and its own worst excesses, but following that path leads to authoritarianism and fascism (ideas better, more thoroughly explored in Watchmen and TheBoys).
While Sam continues to think otherwise, Stallone’s superhero, 25 years past his last, fatal encounter with his presumably deceased brother, obviously believes superheroes are the problem and not the solution (a somewhat reasonable position), but as Samaritan tracks Joe and Sam’s friendship, Sam giving Joe the son he never had, Joe giving Sam the father he lost to street violence well before the film’s opening scene, it gets closer and closer to embracing, if not outright endorsing Sam’s power fantasies, right through a literally and figuratively explosive ending. Might, as always, wins regardless of how righteous or justified the underlying action.
It’s what superhero audiences want, apparently, and what Samaritan uncritically delivers via a woefully under-rendered finale involving not just unconvincing CGI fire effects, but a videogame cut-scene quality Stallone in a late-film flashback sequence that’s meant to be subversively revelatory, but will instead lead to unintentional laughter for anyone who’s managed to sit the entirety of Samaritan’s one-hour and 40-minute running time.
Advertisement
Samaritan is now streaming worldwide on Prime Video.
According to a new report, Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct the upcoming MCU project, Fantastic Four. Marvel Studios has been very hush-hush regarding Fantastic Four to the point where no official announcements have been made other than the film’s release date. No casting news or literally anything other than rumors has been released regarding the project. We know that Fantastic Four is slated for release on November 8th, 2024, and will be a part of Marvel’s Phase 6. There are also rumors that the cast of the new Fantastic Four will be announced at the D23 Expo on September 9th.
Fantastic Four is still over two years from release, and we assume we will hear more news about the project in the coming months. However, the idea of the Fantastic Four has already been introduced into the MCU. John Krasinski played Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The cameo was a huge deal for fans who have been waiting a long time for the Fantastic Four to enter the MCU. When Disney acquired Twenty Century Fox in 2019 we assumed that the Fox Marvel characters would eventually make their way into the MCU. It’s been 3 years and we already have had an X-Men and Fantastic Four cameo – even if they were from another universe.
Deadline is reporting that Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct Fantastic Four. Shakman served as the director for Wandavision and has had an extensive career. He directed two episodes of Game of Thrones and an episode of The Boys, and he had a long stint on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. There is nothing official yet, but Deadline’s sources say that Shakman is currently in talks for the job and things are headed in the right direction.
Advertisement
To be honest, I was a bit more excited when Jon Watts was set to direct. I’m sure Shakman is a good director, but Watts proved he could handle a tentpole superhero film with Spider-Man: Homecoming. Wandavision was good, but Watts’ style would have been perfect for Fantastic Four. The film is probably one of the most anticipated films in Marvel’s upcoming slate films and they need to find the best person they can to direct. Is that Matt Shakman? It could be, but whoever takes the job must realize that Marvel has a lot riding on this movie. The other Fantastic Four films were awful and fans deserve better. Hopefully, Marvel knocks it out of the park as they usually do. You can see for yourself when Fantastic Four hits theaters on November 8th, 2024.
Film Synopsis: One of Marvel’s most iconic families makes it to the big screen: the Fantastic Four.
Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase have entered Zombie Town, a mystery teen romancer based on author R.L. Stine’s book of the same name.
The indie, now shooting in Ontario, also stars Henry Czerny and co-teen leads Marlon Kazadi and Madi Monroe. The ensemble cast includes Scott Thompson and Bruce McCulloch of the Canadian comedy show Kids in the Hall.
Canadian animator Peter Lepeniotis will direct Zombie Town. Stine’s kid’s book sees a quiet town upended when 12-year-old Mike and his friend, Karen, see a horror movie called Zombie Town and unexpectedly see the title characters leap off the screen and chase them through the theater.
Zombie Town will premiere in U.S. theaters before streaming on Hulu and then ABC Australia in 2023.
“We are delighted to bring the pages of R.L. Stine’s Zombie Town to the screen and equally thrilled to be working with such an exceptional cast and crew on this production. A three-time Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award winner with book sales of over $500 million, R.L. Stine has a phenomenal track record of crafting stories that engage and entertain audiences,” John Gillespie, Trimuse Entertainment founder and executive producer, said in a statement.
Advertisement
Executive producers are Trimuse Entertainment, Toonz Media Group, Lookout Entertainment, Viva Pictures and Sons of Anarchy actor Kim Coates.
Paco Alvarez and Mark Holdom of Trimuse negotiated the deal to acquire the rights to Stine’s Zombie Town book.