The Adam Project Gives Netflix Its Third-Biggest Original Movie Launch

The recent Ryan Reynolds Netflix Originals movie, "The Adam Project," has become the streaming platform's third-biggest original movie launch, as per a report by The Hollywood Reporter. The time travel film clocked in 92.4 million watched hours for the week ending March 13, 2022, which includes both one-time watches and rewatches by subscribers on Netflix. This contributed to its third-biggest Netflix opening feat, and the numbers will most likely climb upwards, given the family-friendly nature of the film.

Breaking the laws of space-time

"The Adam Project" follows time-traveling fighter pilot Adam Reed (Reynolds), who needs to team up with his 12-year-old self for a mission to save the future (the events are precipitated by an accidental crash landing, oopsie). The numbers clocked by the film are impressive, considering that Netflix altered their metric system sometime last year.

The films that surpass the launch numbers of "The Adam Project" since the introduction of the new metrics are "Red Notice" (another Reynolds-starrer), which clocked 140 million hours, and Adam McKay's star-studded disaster comedy, "Don't Look Up," which clocked 111 million. "Red Notice" also went on to rank number one on the list of most-viewed Netflix movies within a 28-day span since release.

Netflix numbers or grosses for shows/films on streaming platforms are always difficult to gauge, as the process is not as structured as box office grosses, both domestic and global. Most streaming viewership numbers are kept under wraps, making it difficult to parse exact details in terms of number of rewatches, watches abandoned midway, and numbers in countries outside of the U.S. (as most streaming data aggregators, such as Nielsen, mostly include U.S. numbers, although roughly two-thirds of Netflix subscribers reside outside of the U.S.). Apart from this, most aggregations exclude mobile devices, which, as a result, drastically affects calculations.

In terms of the most-watched English language TV series list, season 1 of "Pieces of Her" was the No. 1 show of its second week with 95.7 million hours clocked, while the final season of "The Last Kingdom" managed to pull in 63.5 million hours, ranking second on the list. The other entries in the top five list include "Inventing Anna," season 1 of "Vikings: Valhalla," and season 4 of "Formula One: Drive to Survive."

"The Adam Project" reunited Reynolds with "Free Guy" director Shawn Levy, and the duo is set to tackle "Deadpool 3" next.