Having spent upwards of $30 million to purchase the entirety of Mark Millar’s Millarworld, Netflix would be hoping at the very least its adaptations of the prolific creator’s comic book back catalogue would bring success. While The Chosen One has achieved it to a minor degree, in the grand scheme of things it’s another misfire.
Of course, it isn’t exactly a gargantuan failure on the scale of Jupiter’s Legacy setting the streaming service back $200 million and then being axed weeks after it premiered, nor is it really comparable to the animated Super Crooks being sent out to no fanfare and ignored. And yet, the latest Millar series has somehow managed to achieve the rare feat of reaching number one the weekly charts, but still conspiring to flop at the same time.
Per Netflix’s own data, The Chosen One topped the non-English viewership rankings this week having accrued 13.2 million viewing hours and 3.1 million views. On the other side of the coin, that would only place it fourth overall in terms week one releases behind Depp V Heard, Ballers, and At Home with the Furys, while Mask Girl earned 6 million more hours watched on account of its extended running time.
Even compared to recent first-week debuts, The Chosen One‘s numbers are lagging well behind the likes of Painkiller, season 8 of Gabby’s Dollhouse, Survival of the Thickest, Zombieverse, season 4 of Sintonia, and Fatal Seduction, and that’s since the beginning of last month alone. A nonexistent marketing campaign didn’t help, but you’ve got to question why Netflix is putting so little effort into promoting its Millar-derived content having spent tens of millions of dollars to get hold of it in the first place.