Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Pinocchio’ and ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ or How Netflix Beat Disney
by Julia Knutelska
Key Findings:
- Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio outperformed Disney’s Pinocchio in the United States and Mexico. In the first 28 days after release, del Toro’s film gained 13.9M (United States) and 12.9M (Mexico) Unique Viewers, while his rival’s audience was 8M and 1.1M UVs, respectively.
- Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio also brought attention back to del Toro’s previously-released Cabinet of Curiosities. More than 5% of Pinocchio’s viewers cross-watched Cabinet of Curiosities in December 2022.
- In Mexico, 12.5% of Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio viewers also watched the companion making-of documentary, Handcarved Cinema in December 2022.
- Although Disney’s Pinocchio engaged a slightly larger part of its audience than did Netflix’s version in the United States, it failed to do the same in Mexico.
Introduction
The last quarter of 2022 brought two new titles by the master of horror, Guillermo del Toro, to Netflix: the first, an anthology of eight modern horror stories, Cabinet of Curiosities; and the second, a reimagining of the beloved children’s classic, Pinocchio. Both titles attracted plenty of media attention and, more importantly, generated viewership worthy of this hype.
Both titles also saw strong competition from Disney and director Robert Zemeckis, who released their Pinocchio on September 9, 2022, just three months before Guillermo del Toro’s version for Netflix.
One story, two streaming giants, and two renowned directors. Who won? Our Showlabs viewership data can cast some light.
The Two ‘Pinocchios’
The iconic story about a wooden puppet who comes to life has become yet another front in the Streaming Wars, as Disney+ is getting ever closer to matching Netflix’s subscriber count in certain markets.
The rework by Robert Zemeckis is a live-action film starring Tom Hanks as Geppetto, and is set in a small Italian village in 1895, with the traditional plot. Del Toro’s film is an unconventional reimagining of the story, using stop-motion animation and dark fantasy elements, set in Mussolini’s fascist Italy.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio has already set a precedent in the history of cinema, winning the Golden Globe for Animated Feature, thus making Netflix the first streaming platform — and Guillermo del Toro the first Latino — to win the award. The film was also awarded in the same category at the Critics’ Choice Awards.
The movie by Zemeckis, meanwhile, has failed to reach a 30% score on Rotten Tomatoes from both audiences and critics alike. In comparison, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio has a “certified fresh” 97% Tomatometer, and a 91% audience score.
When we look at our Showlabs data, the dominance is overwhelming.
Viewership in Mexico and the United States
In this analysis, we’re going to focus on viewership in Mexico and the United States since Pinocchio has been a longtime passion project for del Toro, who hails from Guadalajara, Mexico, where he founded the animation studio Taller del Chucho to train a new generation of local talent.
Without a doubt, Mexican audiences enjoyed Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. So much so, that viewership from the 4th day onwards in Mexico was actually greater than concurrent viewership in the United States, which is an outstanding result considering that the US market has more subscribers.
However, the film’s 4-day Unique Viewer (UV) numbers in the United States were enormous—greater, in fact, than the total number of UVs who watched the film in its first 28 days in Mexico:
In the first 28 days, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio was watched by 13.9M UVs in the United States. In relative terms, the film engaged 6.95% of its active audience on the platform (Share of Viewing, SoV). In comparison, Disney’s Pinocchio engaged 8.69% of its active audience.
In Mexico, meanwhile, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio had 12.9M UVs in the first 28 days, which was a 35.11% SoV. The Disney version had a 17.65% SoV.
Thus, even though Disney activated a slightly greater chunk of its audience (around 8%) compared to Netflix (around 7%) in relative terms, the difference was very significant when it came to the absolute numbers. In the United States, Disney had an audience that was twice as small as its Netflix counterpart. In Mexico, the audience was as much as 12 times smaller.
Cross-Viewing
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio was released around the same time as two other titles: Cabinet of Curiosities, another del Toro production, and Handcarved Cinema, a 37-minute, behind-the-scenes special that captures the artistry that went into the creation of Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.
As we can see in the table below, some part of Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio’s audience in both markets also watched Cabinet of Curiosities and Handcarved Cinema in December 2022:
Table 1: Cross-Viewing presenting the percentage of Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio viewers who watched the other titles during December 2022.
In Mexico, a higher percentage of Pinocchio’s audience was engaged in watching the other titles: 12.5% cross-watched the documentary special and 5.9% cross-watched the horror anthology. In the United States, the proportion was 6.9% and 4.8%, respectively.
Hulu & Netflix: Two Horror Anthologies
Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities on Netflix wasn’t the only big Halloween anthology released this past fall. In the US, American Horror Story, season 11 was released on Hulu on October 20, 2022. The season was also available a day before on FX.
Each episode of Cabinet of Curiosities is an independent story with a different director and an individual horror vibe, so new episodes were released on Netflix daily. American Horror Story episodes were released weekly.
Cabinet of Curiosities fared better according to Rotten Tomatoes, with a 93% Tomatometer and 73% audience score, while AHS NYC was rated 71% and 42%, respectively. But what does our Showlabs data say?
We compared the daily viewership for both series in Q4'22 in the United States. And, while we know that better audience ratings do not always translate into better viewership, this time they did:
From the chart above, you can see that Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities left AHS’s latest season in the dust, even when looking at absolute numbers.
In addition, the difference in release schedules stands out right away due to the periodicity of the AHS: NYC chart, and the relatively rapid increase in public interest in Cabinet of Curiosities.
Analyzing the key 28-days period after release, Cabinet of Curiosities was watched by 13.1M UV on Netflix in the US, while only 4.3M UV watched AHS NYC on Hulu:
Table 2: Rotten Tomato scores, and UV and SoV metrics during each season’s first 28 days.
While the war between the streaming platforms will not be won through a single piece of content, viewership data combined with external reviews show that del Toro take triumph in two important battles for Netflix on two different fronts, with Pinocchio and Cabinet of Curiosities. Notably, also, he “only” needed $35M for his Pinocchio, while the Disney live-action required a cool $150M.
The audience measurement data in this article comes from Showlabs, developed by PlumResearch.
PlumResearch specializes in precise and granular data measurement from streaming platforms. It has the world’s largest online audience panels and provides its clients with insights from over 75 markets worldwide.
Through Showlabs — the proprietary platform created by PlumResearch — the company’s clients can find out how shows and movies are performing worldwide and track what exactly contributes to their success. Showlabs provides clients with accurate data, in-depth insights, and a reliable customer support team.
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