With the pandemic still ongoing, cinephiles have been trading in their trips to the movies for a night in streaming new releases on demand. Many new films are available shortly after their theater release which makes it more appealing to wait just a little while instead of risk going out to the theater. In fact, theaters remain closed in many areas, so HBO Max’s same-day deal with WarnerBros deal has been a big hit. But which movies have seen the biggest opening weekends in terms of streaming?
ReelGood looked at what the top 10 biggest opening weekend performances were for the first quarter of 2021 to find which films were the biggest virtual blockbusters. The findings show Godzilla VS. Kong on HBO Max takes the crown as having the best opening weekend. The WarnerBros film broke pandemic-era records across the globe at the box office, so it makes sense that it would be the winner in the streaming realm as well.
The Little Things and Nomadland came in at second and third place, with Amazon Prime Video making the top 10 list thanks to Coming 2 America. The Eddie Murphy sequel also placed Prime Video at the top of Nielsen’s weekly streaming charts for the first time at the beginning of March, pulling in 1,413 million minutes of viewing time.
Getting into the numbers, Godzilla Vs. Kong muscled its way into 8.1% share of streaming and engagement during its opening weekend. The Little Things wasn’t far behind with 7.4% share, and Nomadland pulled 7.1%. All of the other titles on the list were down from there, with One Night in Miami in last place holding 3.5% share during its opening weekend.
While Hulu, Netflix, Prime Video, and Apple TV+ all had films make it on the list of top 10 opening weekends, HBO Max had the best showing. Noticeably absent from the list is Disney+ who didn’t have many heavy-hitting contenders this quarter. Raya and the Last Dragon was released in March, but didn’t pull as big of an audience as the other streamer’s offerings. But Disney+ has been having great success on the TV side with WandaVision and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.