‘Genie’ Premieres as Peacock’s Biggest Original Movie Ever
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Peacock’s movie Genie delivered a solid opening for Peacock during Thanksgiving week — big enough, in fact, to rank as the streamer’s biggest original film to date.
The holiday comedy starring Melissa McCarthy and Paapa Essiedu premiered Nov. 22 on Peacock and drew about 405 million minutes of viewing time over its first five days, according to Nielsen figures (the full streaming top 10 charts for Thanksgiving week will be available later in December). It’s set to rank seventh among movies for that week, which typically sees a number of holiday favorites (a la Home Alone and Elf) re-enter the streaming charts.
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The 405 million minutes of watch time for Genie is the equivalent of about 4.35 million complete showings of the 93-minute film (which is the now-codified standard for a “view” of a streaming movie or series).
Genie stars McCarthy as Flora, a genie who’s been trapped for more than 2,000 years inside an antique jewelry box. After millennia of being summoned to grant wishes of gold doubloons and hot babes for greedy men, Flora is accidentally called to service by Bernard Bottle (Essiedu, I May Destroy You), whose life is falling apart. Denée Benton, Marc Maron, Jordyn McIntosh, Luis Guzmán and Alan Cumming also star.
Richard Curtis (Love Actually, Yesterday) wrote the movie, which is based on his 1991 BBC teleplay Bernard and the Genie. Sam Boyd (Love Life) directed the film from Working Title and Universal Pictures. Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner of Working Title, Riva Marker and Curtis produced the film; McCarthy, Caroline Jaczko, Alexandra Loewy, Sarah-Jane Robinson, Nicole King and Stacy O’Neil are executive producers.
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