'Don't Look Up' breaks weekly viewership record for Netflix

"Don't Look Up" hit a record high for the most hours a movie has been viewed on Netflix in a week, according to the company.

The film, which was released December 24, was viewed for 152.59 million hours in the week ending Jan. 2, Netflix reported.

Just 10 days after being released, the film had ranked first in the company's weekly top 10 ranking for two weeks in a row and reached number three on its Most Popular Films list for the English language, which is based on the number of hours films are viewed in their first 28 days on the streaming platform.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence and Meryl Streep are among the cast of "Don't Look Up," a satire in which two scientists attempt to warn the United States that a comet is on its way to crash into Earth and are met with denial and political controversy. The film was directed by Adam McKay.

"I'm straight up flabbergasted by this," McKay tweeted in response to the news that the film had broken Netflix's weekly viewership record.

Netflix began ranking its content by total number of hours viewed in November 2020, according to The Wall Street Journal. The decision came following complaints of a lack of transparency with the company's investors and viewers.

The recent film "Red Notice" remains at the top of Netflix's Most Popular Films list, followed by "Bird Box."

"I wanted [Don't Look Up] to be a laugh-out-loud comedy, not just a wry-smile comedy," McKay told the Journal the day the film was released.