Gal Gadot’s Heart of Stone premiered on Netflix last Friday and while early viewership numbers are solid, they may not be taking off quite like the streaming service hoped.
According to data provided to IGN by analytics company Samba TV, 1.8 million U.S. households watched Heart of Stone in its opening weekend. The action film debuted on Netflix on Aug. 11, so these numbers run through Sunday, Aug. 13.
This figure significantly trails the opening weekend viewership for Red Notice, Netflix’s 2021 action film starring Gadot, Dwyane Johnson, and Ryan Reynolds. 4.2 million U.S. households watched Red Notice in its first three days on Netflix — over twice as many as Heart of Stone pulled in. That was enough to get Red Notice reportedly greenlit for not one, but two sequels.
“Gal Gadot’s second major Netflix original, Heart of Stone, made a splash with 1.8 million U.S. households watching this weekend but was just a drop in the bucket compared to her first original, Red Notice, with 4.2 million households over its first three days,” Cole Strain, VP of Measurement Products at Samba TV, said in a statement.
While streaming numbers are still mostly shrouded in mystery, it’s possible those are concerning numbers for what Netflix intends to be a new franchise starring Gadot. When we first heard of Heart of Stone back in 2020, initial reports described it as “an original James Bond-style action franchise centered around an international spy.” Gadot’s Rachel Stone was supposed to be another action star alongside the likes of Daniel Craig (and whoever’s next)’s James Bond and Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt.
In our Heart of Stone review, we awarded the Gadot action flick a 5/10, writing, “Heart of Stone doesn’t have much going for it beyond the presence of Gal Gadot in the central role. The screenplay might as well be written by an algorithm: a soulless amalgamation of the elements determined by current metrics to ensure an international hit.” However, it’s worth pointing out that Red Notice managed to draw millions more viewers than Heart of Stone despite similarly poor critical reception.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over seven years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.