Sorry Euphoria and Peacemaker – there's a new kid on the block when it comes to watching HBO Max TV shows.
Our Flag Means Death, the latest TV project from Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi, is dominating streaming on the high seas ahead of other hit HBO Max shows.
The pirate-inspired comedy series only launched on the Warner Bros. streaming service on March 3. But, fueled by a significant word-of-mouth campaign among TV fans, Our Flag Means Death, whose first season ended March 24, is currently the most-watched. -Ask for TV series from around the world. Not bad when other HBO Max projects, including Euphoria and Peacemaker, also wowed global audiences.
According to Parrot Analytics, Our Flag Means Death was 38,65 times more popular than the average TV show, with US audiences, during the week of March 24-28. This number surpassed the extremely popular shows Euphoria (35,36 times), Succession (19,91 times) and Peacemaker (19,16 times).
However, Our Flag Means Death's popularity was not limited to the United States. The period television series also saw significant audience demand in Australia (31,34 times more popular than the average show), Canada (30,64 times), the United Kingdom (28,87 times), and New Zealand (27,05. 22,56 times). Several European nations, including the Netherlands (1 times), also experienced increasing demand for the TV show starring Rhys Darby as Season XNUMX progressed.
Loosely based on the life of "pirate knight" Stede Bonnet, Our Flag Means Death stars Darby as Captain Bonnet, an early XNUMXth-century aristocrat who turns his back on his lavish lifestyle in search of glory and adventure. swashbuckling as a pirate.
However, given his lack of looting experience, Bonnet's misfit team doesn't take him seriously—that is, until a chance encounter with the infamous Barbe Noire (Waititi) leads to all kinds of action-packed comedic antics.
Created by People of Earth showrunner David Jenkins, Our Flag Means Death's first season, consisting of 10 episodes, is available to stream now on HBO Max. Not subscribed yet? You'll want to check out our HBO Max pricing guide for more information.
Analysis: Sailing to a glorious future
What makes Our Flag Means Death's overnight success so amazing is that it's a completely original IP. The show also launched on HBO Max to little fanfare, with television series such as The Tourist, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, and DMZ enjoying a higher degree of promotion and larger marketing campaigns.
Meanwhile, Euphoria, with one season under its belt before Season 2 arrived in January 2022, was an established TV property. Even Peacemaker, a television spinoff of James Gunn's The Suicide Squad, was a character audiences knew before its first season arrived earlier this year. Compare them to Our Flag Means Death, and it makes the latter's popularity all the more remarkable.
Then there's the fact that Oscar-nominated movies, including Dune and King Richard, became available to stream on HBO Max around the same time. The HBO Max movies, which surprisingly lost out to Apple TV Plus' CODA Best Movie at the 2022 awards show, certainly caught the attention of subscribers (in Our Flag Means Death) when they returned to streaming in early March. .
So it's clear that Our Flag Means Death faced some serious competition when it debuted on March 3. But between its premiere and the end of Season 1, audience demand for the show increased by 208% (according to Parrot Analytics). This figure means that Our Flag Means Death was twice as popular as Ted Lasso when the first season of the Apple TV Plus show arrived in August 2020. Not only that, but Our Flag Means Death was a more requested show than season 1. by Peacemaker. . within three weeks of the respective debut of the two shows.
It is unknown if Our Flag Means Death will be able to maintain its upward trajectory. There are plenty of new shows coming out on HBO Max in April 2022 that are sure to pique viewers' interest. In the meantime, there will be movies and TV shows from other streamers, like Netflix, Prime Video and Disney Plus, to deal with for HBO Max deals.
For now, though, WarnerMedia can rest easy knowing they have another hit TV show on their hands. With Euphoria and Peacemaker already proving hugely popular with global audiences, it seems HBO Max is slowly becoming the go-to source for primetime TV projects.