Paramount+ has a record opening with the Sonic the Hedgehog series Knuckles. The six-episode series, which stars Idris Elba as the voice of the title character and Adam Pally, generated 4 million viewing hours worldwide during its first three days of release — a record for a Paramount+ original series, the streamer said.
Paramount+'s announcement also marks a rare instance of making audience figures for its programming public. Paramount+ has 71 million subscribers, parent company Paramount Global said in its first-quarter earnings results.
With a running time of 169 minutes across all six episodes, the 4 million viewing hours for Knuckles equates to approximately 1.42 million full-length impressions (or "views," in the commonly accepted definition of the term for streaming series) of the series in its opening weekend. By comparison, the No. 10 series in Netflix's internal weekly rankings has recently averaged about 1.5 million views in a full week — a threshold that Knuckles has likely exceeded with four additional viewing days.
Paramount+ also says that interest in Knuckles has contributed to a big viewership spike for other Sonic the Hedgehog titles on the service, which more than tripled their daily average last weekend.
“The Sonic the Hedgehog fans came in droves,” said Jeff Grossman, executive vice president of programming at Paramount+. “We are so thrilled with Knuckles' record-breaking performance and the incredible lift the entire Sonic universe has experienced following Knuckles' premiere."
Jeff Fowler, who directed the two Sonic features, directed the first episode of Knuckles. He co-produces the series with Neal H. Moritz, Toby Ascher, John Whittington, Elba, Haruki Satomi, Shuji Utsumi and Toru Nakahara.