The Rian Johnson-directed murder mystery film Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery racked up 83.1 million hours of viewership during its opening weekend. With a runtime of 2 hours 19 minutes, a viewership of 83.1 million hours means that about 35 million households streamed the film during that time. As a result, the film is the sixth biggest film to debut on Netflix in the last two years.
Glass Onion's popularity is hardly surprising. Before it was available for streaming starting December 23, it had a limited theatrical release in select cinemas across North America that began exactly a month prior on November 23. The film went on to earn $15 million during its seven-day run, thereby breaking Netflix's theatrical release record, previously held by Red Notice.
The first film in the franchise, Knives Out, was released in 2019 to widespread critical and commercial acclaim grossing $311 million against a budget of $40 million. Following the film's success, Netflix outbid Amazon and Apple for the rights to two sequels. The streaming platform forked out $469 million for the film's rights, alongside an extra $40 million to produce Glass Onion.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film's director Rian Johnson, producer Ram Bergman, and lead actor Daniel Craig could earn more than $100 million each for the two sequels. Netflix's investment in the franchise is huge with many industry experts stating that the company overpaid.