The latest original drama from Netflix was the most-viewed television show across any streaming platform last week as “The Gentlemen” captured more audiences than Hulu’s uber-popular “Shōgun” series and Peacock’s new Liane Moriarty adaptation “Apples Never Fall,” but still fell to the movie “Poor Things” in overall popularity.
Guy Ritchie’s “The Gentlemen” for Netflix.NETFLIX
KEY FACTS
“The Gentlemen” first released on March 7 and shot to the top of Netflix charts with 215.7 million viewing hours in its first two weeks—enough to make the show the most-watched series across any platform in the week of March 14 to March 20, according to analytics company Reelgood.
“Shōgun” on Hulu was the second most-streamed show of the week (the fourth week in a row it made the top 10 list), followed by “Apples Never Fall” on Peacock, “Manhunt” on Apple TV+ and “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV” on Max, a documentary featuring several disturbing revelations from the sets of popular Nickelodeon shows like “Drake & Josh,” “Zoey 101” and “iCarly.”
Despite the breakout success of “The Gentlemen,” its popularity wasn’t enough to overcome that of Oscar-winning film “Poor Things” to take the title of the overall most-watched title of the week, according to Reelgood.“Poor Things” on Hulu, which won Emma Stone the Academy Award for best actress, was the most-streamed title last week and the most-watched movie, followed by “Oppenheimer” on Peacock, “American Fiction” on Fubo TV, “Dune: Part One” on Max and “Damsel,” the new Millie Bobby Brown film on Netflix.
Netflix’s new show “The Gentlemen” is linked to, but has little to do with the 2020 film of the same title. Both came from the mind of Guy Ritchie and focus on the concept of an underground marijuana empire, but they don’t feature the same characters and the plots don’t rely on each other. The film starred Matthew McConaughey as a cannabis baron named Michael Pearson who paid aristocrats for the use of their land to grow his product. The show focuses on one of those aristocrats—the Duke of Halstead—whose second son (Theo James) inherits his entire estate and later finds out has become part of a weed-growing empire run by criminal mastermind Susie Glass (Kaya Scodelario). The similarities are clear, but the stories do not intertwine and the characters have no overlap. So far, the two titles have been similarly received by audiences. While the movie was no blockbuster success (it earned $36.4 million at the domestic box office), it was generally enjoyed by viewers with a 75% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and 84% audience score. “The Gentlemen” TV show currently has a 70% critics score and 86% audience score.
SURPRISING FACT
Two of the main actors in “The Gentlemen” series both have pasts as the stars of popular teen franchises—but of rival series. Scodelario was the lead female actor in “The Maze Runner” film adaptations starting in 2013 and Theo James shot to fame as the star of the “Divergent” series from 2014 to 2016.
