In a week of relative viewer ennui for the Netflix audience, the French remake of local-language action-film classic Wages of Fear yielded 32.4 million viewing hours and a platform-leading 18.3 million account views, with latter metric, now Netflix's preferred measuring stick, making it the No. 1 title on the top streaming platform for the week of April 1-7, per Netflix's weekly global ranker.
Better known in France as Le Salaire de la Peur, the 1953 original starred Yves Montand, Peter van Eyck, Charles Vanel and Folco Lulli as four down-on-their-luck guys who take an explosively dangerous gig hauling nitroglycerin across the desert to put out an oil fire.
The Wages of Fear remake, directed by Julien Leclercq, a kind French version of Michael Bay known for big action films, scored just a 29% in Rotten Tomatoes critics aggregation. (The Penske showbiz trades did a pretty good writeup on the project when Netflix announced it a year ago.)
It was the second week for Wages of Fear on Netflix.
Last week's rankings: Week 2 Audience No Issue for ‘3 Body Problem’ — Netflix Weekly Rankings for March 25-31
Among TV series for Netlix, alien-invasion-themed series 3 Body Problem had a third-week problem, losing half of its week 2 audience engagement. The series produced just 61.3 million streaming hours and 8.3 million account views.
