Following the shocking and unexpected passing of Chadwick Boseman, fans rushed to check out the actor’s back catalogue to pay their respects to one of the industry’s fastest-rising talents with both Black Panther and Jackie Robinson biopic 42 shooting towards the top of the VOD charts. The aforementioned game-changing blockbuster was the most-streamed comic book movie out there just two weeks ago, but now finds itself in sixth place behind another awards season favorite.
Todd Phillips’ Joker was a huge gamble, as the studio was just as skeptical as the fans were on the idea of a standalone R-rated hybrid of prequel and spinoff with shades of Martin Scorsese that didn’t involve Batman. But any doubts were laid to rest when Arthur Fleck’s origin story became the first R-rated movie to cross the billion dollar mark at the box office and saw leading man Joaquin Phoenix emulate Heath Ledger by becoming the second actor to win an Academy Award for playing the Clown Prince of Crime.
Any comic book adaptation that experiences that level of success is going to be the subject of sequel talks, and while there’s been plenty of rumors making the rounds, nothing has officially been confirmed as of yet. Fans still seem to be checking out Joker in huge numbers, though, and new data released by Reelgood reveals the twisted drama as the most-streamed comic book movie of the week based on a sample size of over two million people.
3.5% of Reelgood’s subscribers watched Joker on HBO Max at some stage over the last seven days, with Birds of Prey just behind at 3.2%. The rest of the Top 10, meanwhile, is largely dominated by titles from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Netflix and rounded out by The Old Guard, Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Black Panther, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Extraction and Avengers: Infinity War.
