Back in 2019, Netflix released data claiming that 45 million accounts – nearly a third of its total subscribers – had streamed the Sandra Bullock thriller Bird Box in its first week on the platform, a record for a Netflix film.
At face value that statistic was extraordinary. All things being equal, had the Susanne Bier-directed film been released in cinemas, it would have racked up nearly half a billion pounds in just one week based on an average ticket price of £10.
That record has since been surpassed by the 2021 comedy action movie Red Notice, which notched up 328.8 million viewing hours and has been seen by over 50 percent of all Netflix users. As reported by Screencrush, Bird Box took four weeks to rack up its 282 million viewing hours. In contrast, Red Notice surpassed that total in just 18 days.
It was proof of the soaring demand to stream movies at home and equally of the importance to streamers of securing original must-see content.
As for the effect on traditional moviegoing…
You are not signed in
Only registered users can read the rest of this article.
FutureTech 2026: “Align on innovation, and it accelerates”
From imaginative politics and shifting approaches to innovation to adaptable governance of technology, no topic was off the table at this year’s DTG’s FutureTech. George Jarrett reports.
Creator economy comes to enterprise: What does broadcast AV really mean today?
As video becomes a core enterprise capability, broadcast AV is being redefined. It’s less about better hardware and more about network-native, production-grade media systems that can scale, are interoperable and operate reliably inside modern IT environments.
Age diversity: What to do about an age-old problem?
In the era of the 100-year life, is it time for the M&E industry to revisit its relationship with age diversity? As mid-career challenges and skills shortages intensify, IBC365 investigates the professionals striving to give more, over longer periods of time.
MovieLabs: Creating an industry-aligned vision for the future of media creation
How MovieLabs is building on two decades of development in film and television to help guide the future of media creation.
CES 2026: “The ChatGPT moment for physical AI is nearly here”
Passive language-based text-to-video models are so last year. From the enterprise to the home to the creative suite, the future is multi-modal AI capable of massive three-dimensional world building and physical interaction.
