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'Bird Box' Has Had The Best Week In Netflix History, According To Netflix

bird box viewers
By Chris Evangelista

Netflix doesn't usually like to give away their statistics, but in the case of Bird Box, they're making an exception. According to the streaming giant itself, Bird Box viewers have totaled more than 45 million so far, giving the Sandra Bullock horror flick the "best first 7 days ever for a Netflix film." That's both surprising, and impressive. Hopefully Netflix will reward the birds in the box with some birdseed.

As you can see above, Netflix is happy to crow about Bird Box. As the Tweet says, "45,037,125 Netflix accounts have already watched Bird Box — best first 7 days ever for a Netflix film!" That number might seem unbelievable, but let's just assume Netflix isn't lying here for the sake of argument. (That said, only Netflix knows if this is true or not; and there's always a chance that a good number of these people watched a few minutes, then turned the movie off, but I digress.)

UPDATE: The Verge spoke to a Netflix spokesperson who further explained what these numbers mean to lend more credence to them. A view only counts for Netflix from a given account if they've watched 70 percent of the total running time (including credits). And while each account may have viewed the movie multiple times, Netflix only counts it once. So that's pretty huge.

It's curious that Netflix would release these numbers now, and a part of me wonders if it has anything to do with the conspiracy theory floating around that the streaming service has been manufacturing memes on Bird Box's behalf. As we reported earlier, Twitter has seen a massive influx in Bird Box memes ever since the film dropped on Netflix. In fact, the memes seemed to start up almost immediately, which is a tad suspicious. With that in mind, several people have posited that Netflix is using fake Twitter accounts to manufacture buzz for the flick.

There's no actual proof this is happening, and it's just a rumor for now. Still, the fact that Netflix decided to make the Bird Box viewers numbers public today does give one pause. If the meme creation was indeed a stunt by Netflix to get people squawking about Bird Box, it's clear it worked – those numbers don't lie. Also helping matters is the fact that Bird Box dropped at the start of a holiday weekend, giving people with time off extra days to catch it. None of this is to diminish the movie – it's pretty good!

We'll have to wait and see if Netflix starts revealing viewing numbers for other properties going forward, or if this was a one-and-done deal to highlight how incredibly successful Bird Box has been.

When a mysterious force decimates the world's population, only one thing is certain: if you see it, you take your life. Facing the unknown, Malorie finds love, hope and a new beginning only for it to unravel. Now she must flee with her two children down a treacherous river to the one place left that may offer sanctuary. But to survive, they'll have to undertake the perilous two-day journey blindfolded. Academy Award® winner Sandra Bullock leads an all-star cast that includes Trevante Rhodes, with Sarah Paulson, and John Malkovich in BIRD BOX, a compelling new thriller from Academy Award® winner Susanne Bier.

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