Ratings company Nielsen announced earlier this year that it will officially start measuring Netflix viewership, which came as a surprise with how secretive Netflix have been in the past regarding viewer figures. One of Netflix's biggest releases of the year came out last week on December 22, and from the sounds of how many people watched it, Netflix is pretty happy with the results.
The Will Smith-starring sci-fi action film Bright debuted to impressive numbers according to Nielsen, who report that the film was seen by 11 million viewers in the U.S. alone. Nielsen have also noted that they only track viewers who watched the film on a TV, meaning those who watched the film on other devices such as mobile phones did not contribute to the already large figure.
The David Ayer-directed film, which was written by Max Landis, has proved popular with audiences, but it's faced a lot of criticism. The film holds a dire 29% on Rotten Tomatoes, and Chance the Rapper says he felt "a lil cheated" by the allegorical racism in the film. "Wondering how you guys are feeling about the lynched ork in Bright," he tweeted. As a borderline offensive depiction of racism, it's landed writer Landis and Directed Ayer in hot water from some viewers.
The $90 million film remains a hit for Netflix, but it seems that it's also been making headlines for some less than celebratory reasons, too. Aside from the criticism he's received for his handling of how orcs are depicted in the film, which takes place in a world where orcs face the brunt of racism, Landis was also recently accused of sexual assault on Twitter.
