The release of Friends: The Reunion on HBO Max proved to give the streaming service the biggest subscriber boost of the year so far, beating almost all of the Warner Bros. films that have been released on the platform in 2021.
The Friends one-time special was responsible for the largest single-day sign-ups for the HBO Max streaming to date, according to Business Insider. Specifically, data released by market measuring firm Antenna confirmed that the reunion special outpaced the new sign-ups credited to both Godzilla vs. Kong and Mortal Kombat.
The special also beat the number of new subscribers brought in ahead of the release of The Little Things, Judas and the Black Messiah, Tom & Jerry and Zack Snyder's Justice League. Friends: The Reunion, however, still fell short of bringing in as many new subscribers as Wonder Woman 1984 did at the end of 2020.
News about the Friends-fueled subscriptions follows earlier reports that Friends: The Reunion was watched by approximately 29% of streaming households in the United States when it released on HBO Max on May 27. Those viewing numbers also almost surpassed Wonder Woman 1984, which garnered 32% of streaming households in the U.S. when it debuted on the streaming platform on Christmas Day 2020.
The Friends viewing numbers were first reported by connected-TV analytics provider TVision via Variety, which also revealed at the time that 55.4% of viewers for Friends: The Reunion were female, with more than 50% of viewers being between the ages of 35 and 54.
Friends: The Reunion featured the return of original cast members Jennifer Anniston, Courtney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer. Also featured were a variety of guest stars, including Tom Selleck, James Michael Tyler, David Beckham, Justin Bieber, James Corden, Cindy Crawford, Cara Delevingne, Lady Gaga, Elliott Gould, Kit Harington, Larry Hankin, Mindy Kaling, Maggie Wheeler, Reese Witherspoon and Malala Yousafzai.
Friends: The Reunion and all 236 episodes of Friends are currently available to stream on HBO Max.
Source: Business Insider, Variety