Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery earned a significant achievement within its first few days on Netflix, as revealed by Nielsen’s U.S. streaming charts. A standalone sequel to director Rian Johnson’s 2019 film Knives Out, Glass Onion sees Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) getting invited to a weekend island getaway hosted by tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton). With Bron planning a fake murder mystery party for his friends on the island, Blanc begins unravelling clues leading him to believe one of Bron’s guests is plotting to kill him indeed. 

Much like Knives Out, the film has a twist-laden plot that keeps the audience guessing throughout its runtime.

According to Deadline, a new report from Nielsen has revealed that Glass Onion ranks as the No. 3 most-streamed film within a week-long measurement. The film joins Hocus Pocus 2 and Wonder Woman 1984 as one of the top-watched films on a streaming service over a measured week. What makes this even more impressive is that Glass Onion racked up its 2.2 billion viewing minutes in just three days during the December 19-25 measurement week, having debuted on Netflix on December 23. One thing to note is that Nielsen only measures what is streamed on TVs in the United States.

Why Glass Onion Is So Successful?

The success of Glass Onion comes as no surprise to fans of Knives Out, who enjoyed how the first film’s intriguing murder mystery slowly unfolded to reveal a more complicated story. Johnson continues this trend of throwing viewers for a loop in Glass Onion, giving his audience little clues about what’s going on throughout the movie. Using red herrings to misdirect the audience while also giving them real clues they could use to solve the mystery before Blanc does make viewers part of the film’s experience. This presentation makes Glass Onion feel interactive in a way that only mysteries can; the viewer is a detective too, making it immensely appealing.

Photo courtesy of Netflix

The movie also pulls from classic detective literature to create a new, unique story that still has a level of familiarity for mystery fans. Blanc returns as Glass Onion‘s detective, playing the same role he did in Knives Out and painting him as a recurring figure in Johnson’s mystery films akin to Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot. Agatha Christie’s classic novel may have inspired the idea of a murder mystery on an island, And Then There Were None, which has inspired many mystery stories in various forms since its release. By creating a setting that is both unique and familiar to mystery fans, Johnson is able to utilize the tropes of the mystery genre to craft his own suspenseful tale.

The cast of Glass Onion has also given it a boost, given how strong each actor is in their roles. In addition to Craig and Norton, Dave Bautista, Janelle Monáe, Leslie Odom Jr., and all other actors in the film came together to bring an exciting cast of characters to life. Those characters and their interactions with one another create the tension and intrigue behind Glass Onion, making their performances a key component of the film as a whole. Given how many factors make Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery an excellent detective movie, it’s no surprise that it has achieved such rapid popularity and success.