Don’t Look Up makes Netflix history with record-breaking amount of views

Satirical climate change film Don’t Look Up has made Netflix history after recording the most viewing hours for a movie in one week.

The film, written and directed by The Big Short filmmaker Adam McKay, was watched for 152,290,000 hours globally between December 27 and January 2, a record-breaking amount for the streamer according to Deadline.

It stars Leonardo DiCaprio as astronomy professor Dr Randall Mindy and Jennifer Lawrence as his student Kate Dibiasky, whose warnings of a comet heading directly towards Earth are not taken seriously.

Director McKay retweeted the news and wrote: “I’m straight up flabbergasted by this.”

The film, which offers a satirical look at the climate change crisis and misinformation, has spent two weeks in Netflix’s global top 10 list for TV and films since its release on December 24.

Its current nearest contender, 2021’s The Unforgivable starring Sandra Bullock, stands considerably further behind at 21,310,000 hours viewed.

The satire is also currently ranked as the number one film in 92 countries including the UK, the US, Canada, Ireland, France, Germany and Australia, according to the streaming giant.

Don’t Look Up sees the two astronomers, DiCaprio and Lawrence, embarking on a giant media tour as they try to get people to care about what they are trying to say, with just six months until the comet makes impact.

Also among the movie’s star-studded cast are Meryl Streep, Timothee Chalamet, Cate Blanchett, Tyler Perry, Sir Mark Rylance, Ron Perlman, Himesh Patel, Melanie Lynskey and singer Ariana Grande.

The film marks DiCaprio’s first screen appearance since Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood in 2019, while Lawrence has not starred in a film since X-Men film Dark Phoenix, also in 2019.

It was released in cinemas on December 10 but began streaming on Netflix from December 24.