How Are They Doing?: "The Better Sister", "Fountain Of Youth", "Tyler Perry's Straw"
Two are quite strong, one not so much
This post will cover viewing data for three new high profile original titles on streaming, one series and two movies, all with top talent.
THE BETTER SISTER ON AMAZON PRIME
I offered my opinion on this series last week in an edition of “Previously On” which you can access here. Now let’s take a look at its performance for the first seven days of availability on Prime with data from Luminate.
The Better Sister doesn’t feel like an Amazon series. The murder mystery featuring estranged sisters, lavish lifestyles, family secrets and mysterious flashbacks seems more like a show for Netflix (The Perfect Couple, Sirens) HBO (Big Little Lies, Sharp Objects) Apple (Bad Sisters, Disclaimer, The Last Thing He Told Me) or Peacock (Apples Never Fall).
Amazon has found its lane for original series, very successfully, with programs based on novels that feature cops (Cross, Bosch), P.I.s, (Bosch again), good samaritans (Reacher) or graphic novels / video games with futuristic heroes (The Boys, Fallout). Of course any streaming service is going to veer outside of a core competency when it believes in a project and probably should from time to time to diversify and also bring in some different audiences and subscribers.
However The Better Sister, and a few other recent titles, indicate that the most secure way for Amazon to obtain the biggest audiences is to stay in that lane. The Better Sister has averaged 3.3M viewers on average across the first seven days of viewing for this 8-episode binge drop. As a reminder this is an average across each episode, some individual eps are higher while others are lower to average to the 3.3M.
That level puts it toward the bottom of recent Amazon scripted TV seasons. It is a bit behind Mr and Mrs Smith and Cross which are both coming back for second seasons although those shows likely had two-season pick-ups from the start (as do most streaming series which get a second season renewal “announced” when the numbers look shaky).
This is level is not necessarily a failure or even “bad” for Amazon but when you are turning a best-selling author’s book into an 8-part limited series with Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks I am confident you are expecting better results so I feel comfortable calling it underwhelming.
Also notice that The House of David, a religious, scripted series in the vein of The Chosen, and Etoile, the ballet drama from the Palladinos, are on the very low end and are pristine examples of Amazon venturing outside of its core competency with negative results. Etoile is clearly a bomb and that explains why Amazon had to undo its two-season pick-up and cancel the second season.
Source: Luminate
BTW doesn’t it appear that we should stop making TV shows about ballet. Remember The Big Leap on Fox?
THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH ON APPLE TV+
I also reviewed this movie last week in the same post I linked to above for The Better Sister. It is terrible but as we have seen time and time again in Netflix data, an original movie does not have to be “good” to be popular on streaming.
The Fountain of Youth, which stars John Krasinski and Natalie Portman, is Apple’s #2 of all time with 8M views after 14 day of viewing behind only The Family Plan (Mark Wahlberg, Michelle Monaghan). It tops other movies that were quite successful at the time of release including Spirited, Ghosted and The Gorge.
The Rotten Tomatoes score for Fountain is only 36% but other popular Apple films are in the same range or worse such as Instigators (40%), Ghosted (25%) and The Family Plan (27%). However, some films have been better received such as The Gorge (63%), Wolfs (67%), Spirited (70%) and Blitz (81%). Many other Apple films are narrower in appeal than these titles and are much lower rated - and not on the chart.
Source: Luminate
TYLER PERRY’S STRAW ON NETFLIX
Tyler Perry has a long history supplying content across the TV landscape which now include a new deal with Netflix which is releasing originals films he has either written, directed or starred in (or more than one of those) concurrently with Amazon Prime.
His latest film is Straw and for its launch weekend it is one of Netflix’s top films worldwide since December with 25.3M viewers according to Netflix’s self-reported global data (U.S. data is not available from Netflix). Netflix rarely targets Black viewers with its original programming which may explain why they have done two different deals with him.
Here is the logline for the film which Taraji P. Henson: “A single mother navigates a series of unfortunate events, leading her down an unforeseen path where she becomes embroiled in a situation she never envisioned, finding herself at the center of suspicion in an indifferent world.”
Source: Netflix
As a reminder on what some of these other films are about:
Back In Action: Jamie Foxx, Cameron Davies family/action/comedy
Carry-On: Taron Egerton, Jason Bateman Die Hard clone
Exterritorial: German action movie
Our Little Secret: Lindsay Lohan Christmas rom-com
Havoc: Tom Hardy cop action movie
The Electric State: $330M Russo Brothers movie starring Chris Pratt and Millie Bobbie Brown
Kinda Pregnant: Amy Schumer comedy
The Life List: Rom-com starring Sofia Carson (The Descendants)
Tyler Perry’s next Netflix film is the 13th in the Madea franchise entitled Destination Wedding which comes out July 11th.