This morning Nielsen unveiled an update to the streaming chart for the week of December 21st - 27th, which now includes the much anticipated premiere of “Wonder Woman 1984.” Without WW1984, Nielsen previously announced that Disney Plus’ “Soul” was the most watched show or movie of the week.
However, with the update Nielsen said that Wonder Woman 1984 saw 2.3 billion total minutes viewed, while Soul saw 1.7 billion minutes – making it the winner of the week. However, WW1984 is 45 minutes longer than the 1 hour and 50 minute Pixar film.
For the sake of argument, if you assume that every person watch the entirety of both films – that means 15.45 million people watch “Soul”, and 14.5 million watched “Wonder Woman 1984.”
So who won? It depends who you ask and what you measure.
Nearly half of the platform’s retail subscribers viewed “WW 1984” on its opening day, stated WarnerMedia.
After launching “Wonder Woman 1984” on the platform on Christmas Day, HBO Max and HBO reached 41.5 million subscribers at the end of Q4 2020. This is an increase of 3.5 million from the 38.5 million they had at the end of Q3, and nearly 7 million increase in 2020. HBO Max also said they now have 17.2 million activations (or people to have opted-in to HBO Max from HBO), up from 8.6 million at the end of Q3, and 4.1 million at the end of Q2.
The subscription analytics company ANTENNA said that “Wonder Woman 1984” drove 40% more gross additions to HBO Max than “Hamilton” on Disney+. While “Soul” was a big hit for Disney+, “Hamilton” was even bigger, driving 107% more gross adds than the Pixar film.
According to Samba TV, more U.S. households chose to watch “Soul” on its opening weekend than those who watched Wonder Woman 1984.
While 2.2 million U.S. households watched “Wonder Woman 1984” on its opening weekend on HBO Max, nearly 2.4 million U.S. households streamed Pixar’s “Soul” on Disney+. “Wonder Woman 1984” peaked on Christmas Day with 986K viewers, while “Soul” had its biggest audience on December 26th with over 1 million households streaming the film.
So while there might not be a clear answer on who “won”, it is clear that for both streamers – in light of a global pandemic – their launches on Christmas was a success.