Lucille Ball Pic ‘Being the Ricardos’ Scores Sizable Streaming Debut

Amazon Prime Video’s Being the Ricardos secured strong viewership numbers in its debut on the streamer over Christmas week.

Directed by Aaron Sorkin, the movie stars Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball and Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz. The film chronicles one of Hollywood’s most famous power couples and their iconic TV show, I Love Lucy.

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Being the Ricardos, which began streaming Dec. 21, was viewed a total of 604 million minutes to place No. 3 on Nielsen’s movie streaming chart for the week of Dec. 20-26 behind Christmas classics Elf (782 million minutes) and Home Alone (700 million minutes).

Netflix and Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up, which is competing with Being the Ricardos in this year’s awards race, also popped up on Nielsen’s top 10 chart for the week with 521 million minutes viewed.

However, Don’t Look Up didn’t begin streaming until Christmas Eve, making comparisons with Being the Ricardos difficult. Additionally, Nielsen will release revised viewership numbers for Don’t Look Up‘s first two days because of a glitch.

Either way, both films attracted strong numbers as the year-end holidays got underway in earnest.

Nielsen’s streaming ratings, which are delayed by four weeks, cover viewing on TV sets and don’t include content watched on computers or mobile devices. And they apply to the U.S. only.

Separately, Netflix numbers — which are more current and count hours instead of minutes — show that Don’t Look Up (350 million hours) is the streamer’s most viewed movie ever on its service in its first 28 days behind Red Notice (364 million hours).

At least two-thirds of Netflix customers are outside of the U.S.

Elsewhere on the Nielsen chart for the week of Dec. 20-26, holiday movies dominated. The top 10 streaming movies for the week of Dec. 13 to 19 are below (see TV rankings here). Original films are marked with an asterisk. Ratings include Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu, Netflix and Prime Video.

1. Elf (Hulu), 782 million minutes viewed
2. Home Alone (Disney), 700 million minutes
3. Being the Ricardos* (Amazon), 604 million
4. Don’t Look Up* (Netflix), 521 million
5. How the Grinch Who Stole Christmas (Netflix), 453 million
6. It’s a Wonderful Life (Amazon), 435 million
7. Encanto (Disney+), 407 million
8. Home Alone 2: Lost in New New York (Disney+), 399 million
9. The Christmas Chronicles* (Netflix), 391 million
10. The Santa Claus (Netflix), 356 million

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