Tyler Perry's Netflix Movie Got As Many Views As Bird Box in Its First Week

On January 17th, Netflix released one of its first original movies of the new year, A Fall From [...]

On January 17th, Netflix released one of its first original movies of the new year, A Fall From Grace, written and directed by Tyler Perry. Like most of Perry's non-Madea fare, A Fall From Grace is a thriller and the trailers seemed to get people excited about his Netflix debut. That excitement certainly translated to viewership numbers, as Perry announced on Twitter this week that A Fall From Grace was watched by 26 million people in its first week on the streaming service. That's a massive debut, tied for one Netflix's all-time best.

To this point, the biggest first week ever for a Netflix film goes to Murder Mystery, the action comedy starring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston that was watched by 30.87 million accounts in its first week last summer. Behind that is Bird Box, the Sandra Bullock-starring dystopian thriller that became a phenomenon for Netflix upon its release in 2018. Bird Box was watched by 26 million accounts in its first week, the same total as A Fall From Grace.

So, in other words, Tyler Perry's first Netflix debut is a monster hit for the service, especially considering that its budget was likely much lower than that of Bird Box.

"My heart is full. I'm grateful, I'm humbled by it," Perry said in a video shared to Twitter. "I've always wanted by movies to open around the world, and that was the first time, so thank you Netflix. Thank you. I saw you all around the world watching, so thank you."

It is worth noting that, although the numbers behind A Fall From Grace seem massive, they may not be just as impressive as those for Bird Box thanks to Netflix's new method of measuring viewership. Not to take anything away from Perry's film, but Netflix significantly changed the way it decides what counts as a "view". Audiences used to have to watch at least 70% of a movie for it to count towards Netflix's numbers. Things have changed, and now a film or show only needs to be viewed for two minutes in order to be tallied.

So the first two minutes of A Fall From Grace was viewed by more than 26 million accounts in its first week. The number of accounts that actually finished the movie could be an entirely different conversation, but we'll never know.

Did you watch A Fall From Grace on Netflix? Let us know what you thought of the movie in the comments!

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