Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Eiichiro Oda’s manga series “One Piece” topped the English-language TV charts during its premiere week, with 18.5 million views for the week of August 28th-September 3rd.
The title was only available for four days of that week, but still managed to rack up those views and is in the Top 10 in 93 countries along with being No. 1 in 46 of them for the week, according to the streamer.
That said, it wasn’t a huge runaway hit like “Wednesday” or even the “Bridgerton” spin-off “Queen Charlotte” which reportedly drew around 43 million and 24 million views, respectively, in their launch weeks (though “Wednesday” had an extra day of availability).
The second full week is generally telling with Netflix series, as seen with Adam Sandler’s family comedy film “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah” which scored 12.3 million views in the August 21st-27th week but increased to 21.9 million views last week.
Speaking about the response, Netflix Co-CEO Greg Peters told a crowd at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Technology Conference (via Deadline) that:
“This is a very high bar to meet, to basically take a storied manga and deliver it in English-language, live action. Pretty much all the haters are out, looking for a reason to hate you for it. To be able to deliver it and have it be massively popular and a success around the world is amazing to see.”
“One Piece” hails from Tomorrow Studios and is now currently available everywhere on Netflix. No word on a potential second-season renewal as yet.
