You’ve seen people watch it on their Peloton, you’ve seen people watch it on their phones, and heck, I even saw one guy who watched it on his Nintendo DS! Regardless of how they’re watching it, though, people all across the world have gone gaga for The Irishman, a slow-burn rumination on regret that clocks in at three-in-a-half hours. How many people, exactly, have watched Martin Scorsese’s latest triumph? Well, per Netflix, just a hair over 26 million folks have seen the digitally-de-aged exploits of a house painter.
Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s current content chief, was speaking at the UBS Global TMT conference over the weekend. Offering an update on viewership of De Niro’s best acting since Bad Grandpa, Sarandos stated the exact number of viewers to be 26, 404,081. That means all of those people watched at least 70% of the movie, that being the threshold that Netflix counts as a “view.” Which is very impressive, considering how impatient and picky us millennials can be.
I saw The Irishman over the weekend with a group of six of us total, making pop-em-up corns and slammin’ down some brewskis, just like Scorsese intended. Going in, I was certainly a tad weary of the runtime, as I get fidgety even during fun stuff like roller coasters and making out. But I gotta say, Joe Pesci’s calm demeanor kept me intrigued, and the time sincerely flew by. Batman V Superman felt longer, and I absolutely love Batman.
Martin somehow made an old man unable to articulate his subtle regret more interesting than two of the most famous heroes finally duking it out in live-action on the big screen for the first time. Oops.
But hey, I digress. I’m glad the director could make a farewell opus to the gangster genre, even if he himself has said that he hopes he isn’t done with it just yet. I dunno, Marty, why not go out on a high note? Ah, it’s nigh impossible to quell the artistic spirit though, is it not? Oh look at me, waxing poetic. The Irishman has me all nostalgic for a time I didn’t even exist in. I wonder if any of the other 26 million folks feel like this?
