Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall’s “Coming to America” sequel, Amazon Prime Video’s “Coming 2 America,” topped all streaming programs in its debut week (March 1, 2021 – March 7, 2021) with 1.413 billion (yes, with a “B”) total minutes viewed, according to Nielsen. The giant “Coming 2 America” opening handed Amazon its first No. 1 slot on Nielsen’s Top 10.
No. 2 overall on the new Nielsen sheets was Netflix original series “Ginny & Georgia,” which amassed nearly 1.2 billion minutes viewed.
“Coming 2 America” bowed on March 4, 2021, so the 1.4 billion tally only counts four days of viewership. The original “Coming to America” came out in 1988.
The previous week’s (Feb. 22-Feb. 28) top movie, for context, was “I Care A Lot,” which drew 807 million minutes viewed. This time around, “I Care A Lot” had 363 million minutes viewed.
Overall for the final week of February 2021, “Ginny & Georgia” was the No. 1 streaming program (series or movie) with 953 million minutes viewed. “Good Girls” reruns on Netflix finished second with 898 million minutes viewed.
Of course, 10 original episodes of “Ginny & Georgia” and 33 acquired episodes of NBC drama “Good Girls” simply offer more minutes to view than any movie would.
“I Care A Lot,” a Netflix movie that launched on Feb. 19, 2021, has a runtime of 118 minutes. The “Coming 2 America” runtime is eight minutes shorter than that.
Until unseated by “Coming 2 America,” “I Care A Lot” had been a repeat (film) winner. From Feb. 15-Feb. 21, the Rosamund Pike-starring movie amassed 790 million minutes viewed. That was an abbreviated week, since “I Care A Lot” launched on Feb. 19, 2021.
Over those first three days, “I Care A Lot” ranked behind five TV shows — “Good Girls,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Criminal Minds,” “iCarly” and “Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel” — in total minutes viewed.
In “Coming 2 America,” African monarch Akeem (Murphy) learns he has a long-lost son in the United States and must return to America to meet this unexpected heir and build a relationship with his son.
The original movie saw Prince Akeem move from Africa to Queens, New York to find a wife while undercover as a poor employee at a McDonald’s ripoff fast food-restaurant.
Currently, Nielsen measures streaming programs across Amazon Prime, Disney+, Hulu, and Netflix.