David Farnor | On 24, Oct 2019

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie has been watched by more than 25 million households in its first week, Netflix has revealed.

The streaming giant has always been famously closely guarded about its viewing figures, but has been gradually playing with ways to use that data to its own ends. It has recently begun to release statistics for key new titles, mostly films, as it looks to build on Roma’s success at the Oscars and position itself as a major, established player in the feature film business – and, with the arrival of Disney+ and Apple TV+, as the market leader in the streaming wars.

With a built-in audience of Breaking Bad fans, Vince Gilligan’s follow-up to the smash AMC series, El Camino always promised to be a hit. And, shortly after its release, it already looks to be winning over viewers: the film was watched by 25,734,392 households in its first seven days, Netflix confirmed last night.

That doesn’t quite match up with Stranger Things, whose third season racked up a record 40.7 million household views in its first four days. It does, however, appear on course to rank well among other Netflix originals; Unbelievable was watched by 32 million member households in its first 28 days, while Season 3 of La Casa de Papel (aka. Money Heist) became the most watched show on Netflix across its non-English language territories with 44 million households watching the new season in the first four weeks of release.

The film reunites fans with Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). In the wake of his dramatic escape from captivity, Jesse must come to terms with his past in order to forge some kind of future.

“El Camino struggles to justify a reason, narratively, to return to post-Breaking Bad Albuquerque, especially picking up so soon after the show’s finale, but what it lacks in momentum it makes up for visually and technically, through performance and tone,” we wrote in our review of the movie, praising Aaron Paul for “dominating every frame”. You can watch the trailer for El Camino here.

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