Ishaan Khatter and Bhumi Pednekar's The Royals delivers massive viewership numbers on Netflix despite terrible reviews, beats Weak Hero, Black Warrant
Ishaan Khatter and Bhumi Pednekar's romantic comedy series The Royals was released on Netflix last week. Despite poor reviews, the web series has been topping the streaming charts from day one itself. The Royals claimed the third spot on Netflix's weekly ranking of the top 10 non-English shows, beating out the Korean hit Weak Hero, the Israeli show Bad Boy, and falling behind only Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight and Eternaut.
The show, which has been created by Rangita Pritish Nandy, is also trending at the number one spot on Netflix in the top 10 non-English shows of the week in seven countries, including India, Bangladesh, Maldives, Oman, Pakistan, UAE, and Mauritius. It has also been listed in the top 10 non-English shows of the week on Netflix in 43 other countries, including Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Colombia, and many others. It scored 3 million views in its opening week.
The Royals, which also features Sakshi Tanwar, Zeenat Aman, Nora Fatehi, Milind Soman, Dino Morea, and Chunky Panday, has a recorded watch time of 17 million hours, with an average runtime of 5 hours and 57 minutes. In May, last year, Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Heeramandi garnered 4.5 million views in its first week. Similar to The Royals, it had an ensemble cast that included Manisha Koirala, Aditi Rao Hydari, Sonakshi Sinha, Sanjeeda Sheikh, Sharmin Segal, Richa Chadha, Shekhar Suman and others.
ALSO READ | Bhumi Pednekar: 'The Royals is a mix of modern-day Bridgerton and Schitt's Creek'
Between 2024 to 2025, Anubhav Sinha's IC 814 (2024): The Kandahar Hijack also recorded a great opening of 4.1 million views in its first week. The Royals is leading in the top 2025 web shows race, as Vikramaditya Motwane's Black Warrant opened with 2.3 million views. This year's Dabba Cartel opened with 1.8 million views. The show starred Shabana Azmi, Jyotika, Shalini Pandey, Anjali Anand, Gajraj Rao, Nimisha Sajayan, Sai Tamhankar, Jisshu Sengupta, Lillete Dubey, and Bhupendra Singh Jadawat.
The Royals has been poorly reviews, and it holds a 33% Rotten Tomatoes score. A part of SCREEN's review of the show read, 'The Royals' needed sharper, felt writing. When a character exhorts a bunch of influencers, 'do 'Gram the hell out of us', it says more about the intention — and the potential audience — of the series than anything else.'
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