Wheel of Time Beat Out by New Hit Amazon Prime Series in Three Days

By Jenna Anderson

Amazon Prime Video has given viewers some pretty surprising streaming hits over the years, especially as it has adapted some existing franchises into the live-action space. One of the more recent hits for the streamer was the November 2021 premiere of The Wheel of Time — but apparently, its record-breaking premiere was just beaten by a new hit. As Nielsen's top streaming list for the week of January 31st through February 6th, the premiere of Reacher racked up 1.84 billion minutes streamed. This easily eclipses Wheel of Time's 1.16 billion minutes streamed.

The first season of Reacher is based on Lee Child's Killing Floor novel, the first of his Jack Reacher books. Emmy-nominated writer Nick Santora (Scorpion, Prison Break) pens the first season, and also executive produces and serves as showrunner for the Prime Video series. Other cast members include Malcolm Goodwin (iZombie) as Oscar Finlay, Willa Fitzgerald (The Goldfinch) as Roscoe Conklin, Chris Webster (Most Dangerous Game) as KJ, Hugh Thompson (Blessed Stranger: After Flight 111) as Baker, Maria Sten (Swamp Thing) as Frances Neagley, Harvey Guillén (What We Do in the Shadows) as Jasper, Kristin Kreuk (Smallville) as Charlie, Currie Graham (Murder in the First) as Kliner Sr., Marc Bendavid (Dark Matter) as Hubble, Willie C. Carpenter (Devious Maids) as Mosley, Maxwell Jenkins (Lost in Space) as Young Reacher, and Bruce McGill (My Cousin Vinny) as Mayor Teale.

"It's tough. There are 26 [Jack Reacher] books, and then there are short-story anthologies," Santora told TVLine of what the source material could be for Season 2. "And there's so much thought that has to go into our decision. Do we want it to be similar to Season 1, because Season 1 was successful? Do we want to go a little different? There's so much that Lee gives us to choose from."

"The good news is we have Lee Child has an executive producer on this show," the showrunner continued, "and we have other producers on this show – we have Amazon, we have Skydance, we have Paramount – and we will sit and discuss it. But it's a not a problem when you have too much good material to choose from. The problem is when you're staring at an empty space, asking, 'What am I going to write?'"

Both Reacher and The Wheel of Time are available to stream exclusively on Amazon Prime. 

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