Netflix's Purple Hearts Has Biggest Week Yet for a 2022 Movie

By Spencer Perry

It's Tuesday, so that means a new batch of data from Netflix about what subscribers are watching has been released; and a surprising new movie, the romance film Purple Hearts, appears to have broken multiple records. The politically-themed feature, which puts a modern Left vs Right spin on the Marriage of Convenience trope, had the biggest single week for a movie on Netflix for all of 2022. According to the streamer the film was watched over 102.59 million hours, beating out films like The Gray Man, Hustle, and The Adam Project, for the biggest week of the year for a Netflix movie. 

That's not the only record that the film appears to have broken though, as Purple Hearts' latest metrics actually reflect its second week on Netflix. In its first week of release Purple Hearts brought in 48.23 million hours streamed, an amount that is nothing to sneeze at for a mid-budget drama with minimal promotion. As noted above though, week two shot up and was streamed over 100 million hours, marking week-to-week growth of 112.7% and over 54 million hours total, seemingly the biggest jump ever on Netflix. We combed through every available week of metrics on Netflix's Top 10 website (which only goes back as far as last July) and saw no other film with that much growth week-to-week, either percentage wise or total hours. ComicBook.com reached out for clarification on if this is a record, Netflix declined to comment.

Despite this success, Purple Hearts has still managed to develop some controversy, with many viewers calling it "military propaganda" (H/T The Tab) and others noting that it has ""hints of racism, misogyny and anti-LGBTQ sentiments." (H/T Sportskeeda)."

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(Photo: NETFLIX)

Typically Netflix films have a week-to-week growth in the single digits or the low teens, with some falling as much as 60% or growing as high as 30%; like theatrically released films they tend to be front loaded with a sizable portion of viewership in the first 7 to 10 days. For example, recent Netflix release The Gray Man premiered to 88.55 million hours streamed in week one, moving up to 96.47 million hours streamed in week 2, growth of just 8.9% and almost 8 million hours total. Even Red Notice, the biggest movie of all-time on Netflix by the streamer's own metrics, saw decreases in audience week over week. Week one of the film's release brought in 148.72 million hours, dipping 13% to 129.11 million hours in week two, and then falling 60.77% in week three with 50.65 million hours. In total it was watched over 364 million hours in its first month.

The closest film that we could find with similar week-to-week growth like Purple Hearts is another recent release, The Sea Beast. The animated film debuted with 33.52 million hours streamed in week one and jumped to 68.11 million hours streamed in week two; a jump of 103% and nearly 35 million hours.

Here's where things get interesting with regard to Purple Hearts viewership, it could very well make an appearance on Netflix's Top 10 Movies of All-Time. Though not an exact science, there is a bit of a formula for figuring out what the total metrics will be for a Netflix release. Despite it being hard to gauge what the week one to week two numbers will be for any given title, week 2 to week 3 typically dips about 60% and then week 3 to week 4 dips another 40%.

Across its first 10 days of release Purple Hearts has been streamed 150.82 million hours, a staggering number of a film of its size. Should the film follow the rudimentary formula that we've developed, it would put it in position to potentially crack the All-Time Top 10 movies on Netflix. If the film does fall the standard amounts in week 3 and week 4, Purple Hearts could wrap up its First 28 Days with over 216 million hours streamed, which would make it the #7 movie of All-Time on Netflix. We'll keep an eye on it, check back here for more details as we learn them.

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