The return of Happy Gilmore to the links brought a whole lot of eyeballs to Netflix.
Happy Gilmore 2, the 29-years-later sequel to Adam Sandler’s golf comedy, set a record on Nielsen’s streaming charts for its premiere weekend. The film amassed 2.89 billion minutes of viewing time in the United States from July 25-27, the highest single-week total for a movie in the five-year history of the ratings provider’s streaming charts. Happy Gilmore 2’s total — 2.893 billion, to be precise — narrowly beat the 2.889 billion minutes for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery in the final week of 2022.
It’s worth noting that Glass Onion’s previous record came over a full week, while Happy Gilmore 2 only needed three days to top it. The 2.9 billion minutes of watch time is equivalent to about 24.58 million complete showings of the 114-minute movie, the accepted industry standard for a streaming “view.” Happy Gilmore 2 had 46.7 million views worldwide for its first weekend, according to Netflix’s internal data. That would mean the Nielsen-measured viewing on TV screens in the U.S. made up about 52 percent of the worldwide total.
Sandler and Netflix have a long-standing relationship that has produced 10 movies over the past decade. Nielsen says movies starring Sandler (including theatrical releases that later streamed on Netflix) have racked up 61 billion viewing minutes on the platform since 2018, with Murder Mystery (9.9 billion minutes) currently leading the list.
Happy Gilmore 2 wasn’t the only movie with a big number for the week of July 21-27. Kpop Demon Hunters hit another high in its sixth week on the Nielsen charts, crossing the billion-minute mark (1.03 billion) for the first time.
On the series side, Netflix’s drama Untamed held up very well in its second week with 2.03 billion viewing minutes — down just 3.5 percent from its premiere a week earlier. The Hunting Wives also had a strong opening for Netflix, drawing 1.36 billion minutes of watch time.
With a new season debuting on Comedy Central, South Park’s library re-entered the charts with 654 million minutes on HBO Max — though as part of a huge new deal with creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, that library has since moved to Paramount+. Family Guy, on the other hand, fell off the acquired series top 10 for the first time since March 2024, a span of 69 weeks.
Nielsen’s streaming ratings cover viewing on TV sets only and don’t include minutes watched on computers or mobile devices. The ratings only measure U.S. audiences, not those in other countries. The top streaming titles for July 21-27, 2025, are below.
Aug. 21, 1:44 p.m. Updated with full streaming rankings for July 21-27.
Credit: Source link