Netflix's 'The Irishman' was completed by only 18% of US viewers who watched it on the first day, but that's on par with some other Netflix releases

Netflix

Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa in "The Irishman"

• 3.9 million unique viewers in the US watched Netflix's "The Irishman" in its first day of release, according to Nielsen.
• But just 18% of viewers actually completed the movie on its first day.
• 17.1 million unique US viewers watched the movie over its first five days, Nielsen said.
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It appears that the three-and-a-half-hour runtime of Netflix's "The Irishman" was a tad too much for a large chunk of viewers - at least at one sitting.

3.9 million unique US viewers tuned in for Martin Scorsese's new Netflix crime drama on its first day of release on November 27, with an average minute audience of 2.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen. But just 750,000 viewers, or 18%, actually completed the movie on its first day.

That might sound like a low number, but it's on par with Netflix's hit thriller "Bird Box" (18%) and higher than its "Breaking Bad" movie, "El Camino" (11%), which are both two hours in length.

17.1 million unique viewers in the US watched "The Irishman" over its first five days of release, from November 27 to December 1, according to Nielsen.

Nielsen's numbers are only based on US viewership and Netflix has yet to reveal any global stats for "The Irishman." Netflix counts a view if an account finishes at least 70% of the movie, meaning viewers would have to watch at least two and a half hours of "The Irishman."

"The Irishman" sparked debate after the Thanksgiving holiday about whether it had any significant impact on the lackluster Thanksgiving US box office, which was down 16% this year. But the likelihood of that is low, as the box office has been down all year. A more likely answer for the decrease is that there weren't any new blockbuster releases over the holiday weekend.

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