Virtual Box Office: ‘Parasite’ Quickly Smashed Streaming Records On Hulu

In a tweet late yesterday, Hulu signaled that Parasite had—after just one week—become the most streamed independent or international movie ever on its platform.

According to Indiewire (which confirmed the news with Hulu), the Oscar-winning Parasite is also now the second most-watched movie ever on the streaming service ever among titles currently available. That includes some pretty huge titles streaming on Hulu, including Booksmart, Pet Sematary, Vice and A Quiet Place.

It’s been a viral week for Hulu, as the streaming platform took to Twitter to shut down trolls upset by the South Korean movie’s subtitles.

Landing the exclusive streaming rights to Parasite was a huge move for Hulu. Ever since the coronavirus pandemic sent everyone indoors, streaming has become the No. 1 source of entertainment for people. According to a recent joint report from Apptopia and Braze, it was estimated that the world saw a 30.7% increase in streaming sessions during the month of March.

In that same study, it was reported that Hulu ranked as the third-most downloaded streaming app available. While Disney+ was downloaded 14.1 million times between January and March and Netflix received 11.9 million downloads, Hulu sat pretty in third with 8.1 million downloads. That ranked ahead of YouTube (7.9 million downloads), Amazon Prime Video (6.4 million downloads) and Tubi (5.6 million downloads).

It bodes well, then, for Hulu to nab the streaming rights to Parasite, which won Best Picture at the 92nd Academy Awards. The film was a box office smash worldwide, pulling in $53.4 million from the United States and $254.2 million worldwide. Notably, Parasite set a 2020 box office record by owning the best per-theater average of any movie screen in the U.S. last year.