By almost every measurable metric, Amazon Prime Video’s Reacher is a massive success. The show dominated social media conversation from the moment that it started streaming, mainly because it’s one of Amazon Prime Video’s best shows. Author Lee Child, the mind behind the Jack Reacher book series, was in tears by the finale of the first season. And a second season already has been announced, which got the best reaction out of leading man Alan Ritchson. But new numbers officially declare that Reacher was a bigger hit than we thought, and they speak well on the show’s bright future.
Nielsen revealed streaming numbers for shows that aired from January 31 to February 6, and Reacher landed at number 2 on the Top 10 list. The only show that attracted more streaming viewers than Reacher was Netflix’s Ozark, which had dropped the first half of its fourth and final season on Netflix on January 21. So it makes sense that fans of that already popular series would be binging the seven episodes that now were available to them, and maybe even watching the previous seasons to catch up on what had happened before entering Season Four. There were 37 possible Ozark episodes to watch, and they collected a combined 2,372,000 minutes of screen time.
Reacher, however, only had its first season, which consisted of eight new episodes, and yet it still managed to outperform programs like Hulu’s Pam & Tommy, Netflix’s Sweet Magnolia, and The Book of Boba Fett on the Disney+ streaming service. It posted 1,843,000 minutes of streaming spread out over the eight episodes. Even more impressive, the first full season of Reacher dropped on Amazon Prime Video on February 4… meaning that these streaming numbers really only capture the show’s first three days of release. And the show STILL shot up to Number 2 on the Top 10 list.
Here’s the list, in full:
1 Netflix Ozark 2 Amazon Reacher 3 Netflix Sweet Magnolias 4 Netflix Raising Dion 5 Netflix The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window 6 Netflix All Of Us Are Dead 7 Disney+ The Book of Boba Fett 8 Netflix In From The Cold 9 Netflix Murderville 10 Hulu Pam & Tommy
Now the producers behind Reacher can prepare for the show’s second season knowing that what they did the first time worked, but still left room for improvements. Alan Ritchson really fit the mold of the unique physical specimen that is Jack Reacher (and he has Popeye’s Fried Chicken to thank for it). And Ritchson told CinemaBlend which Lee Child book he would adapt, if the showrunners asked for his opinion.
Even though Reacher co-star Willa Fitzgerald improvised one of the show’s coolest scenes, she is not expected to return. Every time Reacher lands in a new town, he starts to investigate a new crime, which lets the crew explore new characters in Reacher’s orbit.
We will continue to track any progress on Reacher Season 2, and report it to you here.
