Movies & TV / News

Many Saints Of Newark A Success on HBO Max, Boosted Sopranos to Streamer Record

October 10, 2021 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas
The Many Saints of Newark Sopranos Prequel Image Credit: WarnerMedia

The Many Saints Of Newark may not be setting fire to the box office, but it’s become quite the success on HBO Max — and boosted The Sopranos to record numbers for the streaming service. Variety reports that while the film has had low returns at the box office (grossing $7.4 million to date), the film ended last weekend as the top performing title on HBO Max with ease, tripling the next closest competitor.

The film outperformed several HBO Max day-and-date releases on the service around its budget, including Reminiscence and Cry Macho. However, what the reports most interestingly notes is that the arrival of the film has boosted viewership for The Sopranos by 65% in week-to-week viewing, pushing it to the highest daily viewership in HBO Max history.

“We knew there would be interplay, but we were surprised,” said Andy Forssell, executive vice president and general manager of WarnerMedia Direct-to-Consumer. “The Sopranos is such a popular series. It pops in and out of the Top 10 from time to time, and it’s not a juggernaut like Friends in terms of breadth, but it does very well.”

Forssell noted that the arrival of the prequel film allowed “for people to be introduced to the series, or in many cases reintroducing it. It was absolutely the highest week for Sopranos ever on the service. I’m not shocked by that, but I’m quite surprised that it topped that much that fast.”