Don’t Look Up narrowly misses becoming Netflix’s all-time-best film debut

NIKO TAVERNISE/NETFLIX

Don't Look Up is the second most popular film debut to date, coming in around 4 million viewing hours short of Red Notice.

According to the Top 10 portal for tracking its most successful titles, the new film racked up over 300 million hours of viewing in its first 28 days on the service. Red Notice and Bird Box both had over 300 million hours viewed in their first four weeks on the service.

Don't Look Up is still a monumental win for the streamer, even though it narrowly missed its opportunity to overthrowNetflix's biggest film success to date. It is the second major film release in a matter of months to topple previously held records. Bird Box had held the top record for years before Red Notice came out.

The number of paid accounts has grown substantially in that time, which is one of the reasons for the viewing boost. The success of popular titles like Squid Game, The Witcher, and You have helped to keep them on the top of the list.

Adam McKay's Don't Look Up is a comedy about a comet hurtling through space on its way to Earth. A clown town operation being helmed by a ridiculous president and her son is about to alert the US government about a mass extinction event.

McKay told The Atlantic that he wanted to use comedy to address the issue. As a Hollywood director, I'm right in the middle of it, and part of the movie is generated from me laughing at myself.

The film was a hit from the beginning. It was written and directed by a brilliant comedy director, stars a bunch of A-list actors, and manages to finish a catastrophic event with absurdist humor and exceptional improvisation. Lawrence noted in an interview that the script was "absolute slam-dunk" before it even began filming. Don't Look Up had a marginally better critical response (55 percent versus Red Notice's 37 percent Tomatometer scores), but Red Notice had a better audience score of 92 percent.

Red Notice and Don't Look Up were released in less than two months, which is a huge success for the streamer. It's possible that one or two hits could be a mistake. Hit premiere after hit premiere is more indicative of a successful content strategy than just throwing spaghetti against the wall to see if it sticks.