Let’s just rip the Band-Aid off: Madame Web got more views than Deadpool & Wolverine in their first couple weeks of streaming. Not in theaters—God, no—but on streaming. According to Nielsen, Madame Web pulled 16 million views on Netflix, while Deadpool & Wolverine hit 15.8 million on Disney+. And if that sounds like an alternate universe headline… welcome to 2025.
Now, nobody’s seriously arguing Madame Web is the better movie. That’d be like saying tap water is better than whiskey just because more people drink it. But the sheer fact that this cinematic shrug of a film managed to edge out Marvel’s foul-mouthed golden boy on streaming platforms is worth digging into. Not because it’s impressive—but because it’s telling.
My girlfriend, for example, had zero interest in seeing Madame Web in theaters. She’s not big into superhero movies, especially not the weird off-brand ones that feel like they were made in a boardroom and tested on AI before a single camera rolled. But when it hit Netflix? She watched it. Not once. Not twice. Three times. Within the first week. And it wasn’t even because she loved it. She just found it… soothing, somehow. She puts on movies at the end of the day to unwind, to shut her brain off, and for whatever reason, Madame Web scratched that itch. Maybe it was the tone, the pacing, Dakota Johnson’s low-energy sarcasm—whatever it was, it hit her comfort watch sweet spot.
That’s the magic of streaming right there. It’s the “why not?” effect. A low-risk, zero-cost decision. You’re not dropping $15 a ticket, braving a theater full of strangers, or dedicating a night to a film you’ve already been told sucks. You’re sitting on your couch with the remote. You click, and if it’s terrible? You shrug and scroll. And Madame Web, for all its memeless weirdness and Amazon spider-line absurdity, sits squarely in the “eh, sure” category of modern movies.
But here’s the thing: this isn’t new. Back in 2018, Solo: A Star Wars Story bombed at the box office, barely crawling past $400 million worldwide. I saw it in theaters, loved it, sang its praises. No one listened. But when it hit Netflix later that year, suddenly people were messaging me saying how much they loved it. Because when the cost of entry is time, not money, people are a lot more willing to give something a shot—even if they’ve heard it’s not worth it.
Streaming has redefined what “success” looks like. A theatrical bomb can quietly resurrect itself on the home screen. And Madame Web—a movie that lacked the unhinged memeability of Morbius or the arguably-better filmmaking of Kraven the Hunter—just happened to hit the right algorithm at the right time. It’s not a comeback. It’s inertia. It was just there.
Meanwhile, Deadpool & Wolverine was the opposite situation. Theaters packed. Fans hyped. A billion-dollar box office run. Most of the core audience already saw it. So when it landed on Disney+, there was no rush to rewatch. Especially on a platform that leans family-friendly and isn’t exactly the spiritual home for R-rated bloodbaths. If anything, Disney+ feels like a place where Deadpool shows up by accident, not by design.
And then there’s the numbers. Nielsen said Madame Web pulled ahead. And look, I get it—those numbers make for spicy headlines. But they’re not the full picture. Nielsen’s data only covers TV screen views in the U.S. It doesn’t account for phones, tablets, laptops, or global streaming patterns. It doesn’t tell us how many people finished the movie, or whether they left it running while they vacuumed the house. It’s incomplete.
And yeah, that bugs me. It bugs me that we’re expected to treat these partial stats like they’re gospel just because they’re all we’ve got. Meanwhile, the studios—the ones that actually know how long you watched, when you paused, if you bailed in the first ten minutes—they’re keeping that information locked down tighter than Fort Knox. Because data is power. It’s leverage. And like any corporation, Hollywood’s not giving up leverage unless it benefits the shareholders.
But here’s where I’ll walk myself back a bit. As much as I want the full truth, the uncomfortable reality is this: Nielsen isn’t the whole meal—but it’s the one dish the public gets to taste. It’s not everything, but it’s something. And it’s consistent. It’s the only third-party scoreboard in an industry built on smoke, mirrors, and glowing press releases. Until the studios get more transparent—and they won’t—Nielsen is the closest thing we have to pulling back the curtain.
So no, Madame Web didn’t suddenly become a hit. It didn’t outshine Deadpool in cultural impact, fandom love, or rewatchability. It just managed to slip through the cracks in a way that streaming makes possible. It got watched more because it was there, because it was easy, because people were curious—or just bored.
In the streaming age, you don’t need to be great. You just need to be available.
Hollywood After Dark 