Netflix's The Irishman's ratings released: Over 26 million viewers in first week

Netflix has finally released the viewership of Martin Scorsese's epic crime film The Irishman, according to foreign media reports. According to the company, 26,404,081 accounts watched the film in the first seven days of its release on Netflix, which is roughly the same as the viewing volume of last year's Bird Box.

Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said the 26.4 million includes users who watched at least 70% of the film. The figure refers only to Netflix's streaming channel and does not include people who saw the film during its month-long limited theatrical release.

Last week, ratings firm Nielsen released its own estimate that 13.2 million viewers watched “The Irishman” in its first five days. Although Nielsen’s data covered a slightly shorter period, Netflix reported more than double that initial estimate.

Sarandos reportedly commented that Netflix expects The Irishman to receive 40 million views in its first month, which is only half of the 80 million views that Bird Box received last year, even though the two films started out similarly.

Netflix doesn’t typically share the exact number of people watching its content, which makes the reveal of numbers for “The Irishman,” one of the company’s biggest and most prestigious originals this year, particularly notable. Despite lowered expectations for the rest of the month, Netflix’s choice to release numbers for “The Irishman” seemed to suggest the company was at least pleased with the performance of its expensive, $160 million production.