Red Notice Is On Target To Be Netflix's All-Time No. 1 Movie, But What Does That Even Mean?

Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot and Cleopatra's Eggs all star in the action-thriller that's been topping the Netflix charts for over a week. "Red Notice" has spent the week duking it out with other Netflix Top 10 entries, and is now on track to become Netflix's most popular movie yet ... according to Netflix (via Variety). If "Red Notice" continues towards its current target, the film will soon unseat the current monarch of Netflix popularity: Sandra Bullock's "Bird Box." Another film dropped in anticipation of the holiday season, "Bird Box" racked up 282 million hours viewed in its first 28 days.

This news arrives 28 days after the initial release of "Red Notice," which is around the time the streamer typically makes these grand announcements about how well an original film or series is performing. But thanks to recent developments in the Netflix reporting methods, this time is a little different.

Netflix has always been kind of opaque about the way it reports numbers, and lately has gotten even more vague with the secretive stats. Last month the streamer announced that it would change its reporting metrics away from the previous system, which counted a "view" as anything a subscriber watched for two minutes. Now, it's all about racking up hours! As Netflix explained in a message to investors:

We will shift to reporting on hours viewed for our titles rather than the number of accounts that choose to watch them ... we think engagement as measured by hours viewed is a slightly better indicator of the overall success of our titles and member satisfaction.

And yet, our view from the outside remains pretty oblique. Working off of this new system, "Red Notice" is thriving, having registered 277.9 million hours viewed since its Nov. 12 release. However, this doesn't exactly clear up how many people have tuned into the two-hour film and how much of it they sat through. Have 138 million people watched the film in full, or do 13 million people have it playing on a loop? We all have our comfort movies, after all — for someone out there, watching Dwayne Johnson and Gal Gadot tango is a nice, safe space.

Although the numbers suggest you have absolutely seen this movie already, I'll give a little description ... just for fun. "Red Notice" is a heist film that sees FBI Profiler John Harley (Dwayne Johnson) teaming up with the world's second greatest art thief, Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds) to catch the world's most-wanted art thief, The Bishop (Gal Gadot). Thus, we have a globe-trotting adventure with secluded prisons, explosive action sequences, and all the other action-comedy goods. Critics aren't exactly raving about "Red Notice," but that hasn't stopped the movie from winning some screen time across the service.

Boosted by the popularity of "Red Notice," other films with the lead stars are also topping the charts, including Johnson's "Central Intelligence" (14.91 million hours viewed) and Reynolds' "6 Underground" (7.77 million hours). Are people hopping from one film by said movie star to the next, or is the Netflix autoplay feature working for its money? The world may never know.

"Red Notice" is available now on Netflix.