When Amazon debuted The Wheel of Time last year, it instantly became a big hit for the streamer, with people watching the three three episodes for 1.16 billion upon their release in November. “We can firmly say that Wheel of Time was the most watched series premiere of the year and one of the Top 5 series launches of all time for Prime Video,” Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke told Deadline at the time.
That held true for all of a few months. Nielsen recently came out with its streaming chart for the week of January 31 through February 6, and the first season of Reacher — which premiered on February 4 — was watched for 1.84 billion minutes.
True, Reacher dropped all of its episodes at once while The Wheel of Time only dropped three (the rest came out on a weekly basis), but that’s still a lotta viewership. Naturally, Amazon has already renewed Reacher, which is based on the series of action-adventure novels by Lee Child, for a second season.
Reacher becomes Amazon’s most-watched show
Reacher follows the title character, former army major Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) as he wanders the U.S. helping people. The first season is based on the Child’s first novel Killing Floor, and there are over 20 more to go so Amazon could be busy for a good long while.
Here are the rest of the Nielsen numbers for the week of Jan 31-Feb 6 (HBO Max numbers aren’t included):
- Ozark (Netflix), 2.37 billion minutes viewed
- Reacher (Prime Video), 1.84 billion
- Sweet Magnolias (Netflix), 1.32 billion
- Raising Dion (Netflix), 1.13 billion
- The Woman in the House … (Netflix), 1.12 billion
- All of Us Are Dead (Netflix), 850 million
- The Book of Boba Fett (Disney+), 776 million
- In From the Cold (Netflix), 658 million
- Murderville (Netflix), 351 million
- Pam & Tommy (Hulu), 312 million
The success of Reacher is great news for Amazon. It also proves that you don’t have to spend a ton of money on a high fantasy series to get great returns. Right now networks are in something of a post-Game of Thrones arms race when it comes to splashy genre series, but I expect that will subside with time.
Both Reacher and The Wheel of Time will return with second seasons, although we don’t have any release dates yet.
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