Unfrosted Delivers One of Netflix's Worst Original Movie Debuts of the Year

Jerry Seinfeld's Pop-Tart movie has been toasted by several lesser-known Netflix movies in 2024.

By Charlie Ridgely - May 12, 2024 08:45 pm EDT

Unfrosted, the film about the fiction origins of Pop-Tarts directed by and starring Jerry Seinfeld, has been near the top of the daily movie rankings for Netflix since it premiered on May 3rd. Those daily lists, however, don't always translate to big viewership numbers, they simply mean that Unfrosted is being watched in the United States more than other films on a given day. When you look at the weekly numbers posted by Netflix, Unfrosted starts looking less and less like a success story for Seinfeld and the streamer.

Looking back through the weekly Top 10 data that Netflix releases each Tuesday, Unfrosted delivered one of the worst opening weekends for any Netflix original film in 2024 so far. Over the course of its first three days, Unfrosted was viewed for 11.3 million hours globally. That sounds like a lot...until you put it into perspective.

Lift, the heist film starring Kevin Hart, delivered 58.5 million hours in its opening weekend in January. Animated film Orion and the Dark wasn't even the number one English-language film on Netflix the week it premiered, but the movie still saw 15.5 million hours viewed in its opening frame. Adam Sandler's Spaceman had a similar situation, coming in third over its first frame but racking up 16 million hours.

The list goes on to include smaller films with significantly less star power like Players (28.5 million), Mea Culpa (32 million), Code 8 Part II (33.4 million), Irish Wish (30.6 million), Heart of the Hunter (19.7 million), The Beautiful Game (12.4 million), What Jennifer Did (26.1 million), and Woody Woodpecker Goes to Camp (19.6 million).

There are probably several films in that list that you haven't even heard of before. That's the point. A comedy film featuring Seinfeld, Melissa McCarthy, Amy Schumer, Jim Gaffigan, and many others — a literal who's who of comedic talent — wasn't able to keep pace with films you didn't know existed.

The hope for Unfrosted will lie in whether or not it can stick around amongst Netflix's biggest films for the next several weeks. Sunday's daily Netflix Top 10 Movies list shows Unfrosted as the third-biggest movie on the service in the United States, but as we've learned, that doesn't always mean a whole lot.

1. Mother of the Bride

"A destination wedding turns awkward when the bride's mom discovers the groom's dad is her ex. Brooke Shields, Miranda Cosgrove and Benjamin Bratt star."

2. Shrek

"On a mission to retrieve a princess from a fire-breathing dragon, gruff ogre Shrek teams up with an unlikely compatriot — a wisecracking donkey."

3. Unfrosted

"Battle Creek, Michigan, 1963. The home of cereal giants Kellogg's and Post becomes a sugar-coated battlefield and an all-out war to reinvent breakfast."

4. The Judge

"Robert Duvall earned his seventh Academy Award nomination for his role as a retired judge on trial for murder in this gripping legal drama."

5. Shrek Forever After

"Shrek's world gets turned upside down after he makes a deal with Rumpelstiltskin. Can Donkey, Fiona and Puss in Boots help him make things right?"

6. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

"Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pickett Smith voice a group of zoo animals stranded in Africa in this wildly fun animated comedy."

7. The Equalizer

"Retired intelligence operative Robert McCall reluctantly returns to action to protect a young sex worker from the brutal members of the mafia."

8. One More Shot

"Racing against the clock, a Navy SEAL fights his way through an airport siege to protect the one man who can stop a potentially catastrophic explosion."

9. The Courier

"A modest man from Madrid shrewdly works his way into an international money-laundering scheme in this gripping film by Daniel Calparsoro."

10. The Super Mario Bros. Movie

"Magically teleported from Brooklyn to the Mushroom Kingdom, two plucky plumbers team up with a princess to battle a tyrannical fire-breathing turtle."