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.
While it remains to be seen whether the film will justify the streaming behemoth’s investment, the film’s numbers are definitely thrilling and bode well for the next installment. The film’s release a few days before Christmas when most people were off work meant that viewers would have watched in groups instead of individually. This means the film is probably more popular than the numbers indicate.
The third installment in the franchise is currently in development, although Johnson recently stated that he is still figuring out its story. Furthermore, Johnson and Craig have both revealed they are open to making more installments as long as they are both involved and having fun.
Craig went as far as stating that he is open to starring in the franchise for as long as he did during his run as James Bond. For fans of the classic whodunit franchise, this will be welcome news as it means they could have the Agatha Christie-esque detective, Benoit Blanc, on their screens for a long time.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is now streaming on Netflix.
