‘Reacher’ Gives Amazon Its First Nielsen-Topping Series

In another example of the skewed irony of the streaming era, Nick Santora’s well-reviewed and mostly well-received (especially among genre junkies) Reacher became the first Amazon series to top Nielsen’s SVOD ratings. The re-adaptation of Lee Child’s popular mystery/thriller series nabbed a boffo 1.519 billion minutes during the first full week of availability (February 7 through February 13), declining just 18% from a 1.843 billion-minute “opening weekend.”

With all the talk about streaming being the future or requiring outside the box thinking, sometimes audiences just want to watch old episodes of South Park and a new high quality variation on a trusty paperback pulp fiction series. Even HBO Max has found much of its success from shows (Succession, Mare of Eastown, Euphoria, The Flight Attendant, etc.) that remain right at home as “just” HBO television originals.

Reacher, starring Alan Ritchson as the ultimate Gary Stu (not a criticism), is a four-star presentation of three-star entertainment. Aided by the likes of Malcolm Goodwin (from iZombie), Willa Fitzgerald (who headlined the first two halfway decent seasons of MTV’s Scream show), Kristin Kreuk (Lana Lang from Smallville) and Bruce McGill (who you can’t immediately presume he’s the bad guy), Reacher is exactly what it promises, delivered with style, wit and not a little empathy without trying too hard to be modern-day progressive or apologetic.

It’s not borderline conservative propaganda like John Krasinki’s (otherwise solid) Jack Ryan show, but nor does it offer up its adaptation of The Killing Floor as anything beyond pulpy, guilt-free red meat entertainment. It’s not as “good” as Tom Cruise’s first Jack Reacher, but it’s a lot better than Never Go Back. It’s a fine example of a streaming television show that concentrates on just being a rock-solid action/mystery television show instead of a 6.5-hour movie.

Disney+’s The Book of Boba Fett aired its seventh and final episode a month ago, nabbing 885 million minutes compared to 385 million minutes for the series premiere. That means 2.8 million households watched the whole 330-minute series (account for the copious end credits on each Disney+ episode), 15 million households watched the (splashy and exciting) season finale or (more likely) it’s somewhere in between.

Online grumbling about the series (in terms of lacking much Boba-specific forward momentum and then turning into a third season of The Mandalorian halfway through) didn’t seem to register beyond the perpetually online. Inventing Anna nabbed a boffo 1.219 billion minutes for its nine (unusually long) episodes in its first three days. Shonda Rhimes may be the only big-deal television producer who was actually worth the gazillions of dollars thrown their way by Netflix.

Disney’s Encanto was the top movie yet again, with 1.183 billion minutes (-11%) as it was the only movie to register above even 500 million minutes. As Pixar’s Turning Red arrives on Disney+ today, I will once again reiterate that one need not choose between streaming viewership and theatrical revenue. I’d all but guarantee that the folks who watched the delightful animated musical beginning on Christmas Eve would have still done so had the film been treated like a theatrically-centric global release.

In a world where Illumination and Universal’s Sing 2 can make $360 million despite being available at home for most of its theatrical existence, I’m confident that Encanto could have flirted with $500 million (or maybe $600 million) as opposed to $250 million had its 31-day theatrical window not been treated as a formality. I will be very, very curious as to how Pixar’s Lightyear performs this summer after (hopefully) a conventional theatrical release followed by a Disney+ debut.