‘The Irishman’ Garners An Astounding 17 Million Viewers In Its First 5 Days On Netflix

Since I have been both an admirer and detractor of the way Netflix has treated Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” it is only fitting to see what the actual viewing numbers are for Scorsese’s magnum opus. Of course, a proper theatrical release in thousands of locations would have been ideal for this movie, but then again, “The Irishman” wouldn’t exist without Netflix deciding to churn out $160 million for the film — something other big studios refused to do. If the early reports of viewership are accurate, it seems that a lot of people actually sat down to watch the 3.5-hour movie.

According to Nielsen estimates (via Variety), an incredible 17.1 million people in the US checked out “The Irishman” on Netflix during its first five days of release. This is, of course, an estimate from Netflix, based on the “average minute audience” of 13.2 million viewers. We can’t confirm that this is the number of people who watched the entire film from beginning to end. There must have been an incalculable number of people who started it and just haven’t finished watching it yet.

And so, what I really want to know is how many people actually saw the movie from beginning to end? Nielsen says that on the film’s debut date, 751,000 viewers (roughly 18% of the total viewership) watched “The Irishman” in its entirety. On Friday, November 29, 930,000 folks saw the whole thing.

Netflix likes to call views “hits,” so, if you take for example past Netflix originals in terms of the amount of “hits,” “Bird Box” and the recent “El Camino,” garnered around 25 million each in their first 7 days. Of course, these two films weren’t 3.5 hours long and were much more accessible to the mainstream. So, yes, the 17 million hits “The Irishman” garnered is quite an impressive feat. Now, will Oscar voters go past their Netflix biases and actually name Scorsese’s movie Best Picture of the Year?

“The Irishman” is on Netflix right now for you to stream.