‘Cloverfield Paradox’ Draws 5M Viewers In First 7 Days; ‘Altered Carbon’ Pulls In 2.5M: Nielsen

The Cloverfield Paradox, which Netflix acquired from Paramount and then sneak-released it after the Super Bowl on February 4, drew an average of 2.8 million viewers per minute in its first three days.

That audience was less than one-third of the 11 million viewers collected in the first three days by Will Smith sci-fi title Bright, according to Nielsen’s SVOD Ratings report, which measures only U.S. viewing. There is also an important qualifier that should be added to that comparison, however. Bright was released on a Friday, whereas Cloverfield debuted on Sunday, meaning its first three days were Sunday through Tuesday, not a classic movie window. Nielsen did not provide seven-day figures for Bright.

In its initial seven days of availability, the Cloverfield sequel pulled in 5 million average viewers. Its biggest day was Monday, February 5, when it was viewed by nearly 1.3 million viewers, many of whom had no doubt heard about the stealth release, which was advertised during the big game.

Nielsen also released numbers for sci-fi series Altered Carbon, which was released February 2. In its first three days, it totaled 1.2 million viewers on average, reaching 2.5 million in its first seven days on the platform.

Carbon‘s audience also shrunk pretty dramatically from the premiere to the finale, starting off with a seven-day average of 5.9 million viewers. By Episode 10, that had dwindled to barely 1 million.

Accurate comparisons are hard to come by in the early going with Nielsen’s SVOD ratings, which debuted last fall. Carbon fell well short of the Season 2 debut of Stranger Things last fall, for example, but a new show can’t be compared with a returning favorite.