How the internet has changed our lives:
Netflix says over 45 million accounts have watched ‘Bird Box’.
Assuming two people per viewing, that’s equivalent to 90 million ticket sales.
To place that into perspective, about 200 million people have seen Gone With the Wind in the theaters, and that’s the most-watched theatrical movie of all time. That took 80 years. The mediocre Bird Box (52 score at Metacritic) reached nearly 100 million people in one week!
It’s no wonder the Coen Brothers are willing to eschew the theaters.
Plus, watching something on TV is not “equivalent” to ticket sales.
Based on the way our screens tend to promote isolation and individual experiences today, I would guess the average number of viewers per Netflix stream is considerably less than two. It’s still an impressive number.
You may be right. I tried to find that data, but could not.
So how many people have seen Gone With The Wind on TV?
I don’t know, but my guess is that more people have seen it 1976-present than saw it in its own day, because TV also changed the entertainment paradigm. In just the first network broadcast (NBC, 1976), it was viewed by 33 million households.
And those people didn’t have a choice about when to view it. Unlike the case with Netflix offerings, all 33 million households had to be tuned in at a time of NBC’s choosing. That was some serious drawing power.