Not so fast, Apple! You recently bragged about how successful Tom Hanks’ Greyhound was for your Apple TV+ streaming platform (without offering any specific numbers about what that means), but you’re not the only ones with a new hit movie—the popularity of which we have no choice but to take on faith, since nobody involved will offer up actual data to support their claims. As reported by IndieWire, Hulu says that its new Groundhog Day-style rom-com Palm Springs has been watched more in its first three days than any other thing in Hulu history, giving it (much like Greyhound) the platform’s most successful launch ever. It also apparently generated “the highest amount of social interest for any Hulu original film to date,” but that must be impossible to really quantify so it’s kind of meaningless.
But hey, if Hulu’s happy with the launch of Palm Springs, that’s what matters the most. After all, the movie has had some high expectations attached to it ever since it broke the record for biggest sale ever at Sundance in January. Hulu and Neon paid over $17.5 million for it (specifically 69 cents over $17.5 million), so they were clearly hoping it would find an audience, and—assuming that we can trust Hulu’s insistence that it’s very popular—that’s exactly what happened.