Pope Francis died Monday, starting the process of electing the next head of the Catholic Church. That pontiff selection is exactly the theme of “Conclave,” and the 2024 movie has seen its streaming numbers boom in recent days.
The film, starring Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow and Stanley Tucci and directed by Edward Berger, is ranked No. 2 in the U.S. on Amazon Prime for rent or streaming. It’s also available on video-on-demand services.
The movie, which won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay at the most recent Oscars, centers on the political intrigues surrounding the selection of a new pope by a gathering of the College of Cardinals known as a conclave.
On Monday, as news of Pope Francis’ death percolated across the Internet, viewership for “Conclave” spiked by 283%. On Sunday, the two-hour movie garnered 1.8 million minutes viewed, jumping to 6.9 million by the end of the next day, according to a report from analytics firm Luminate cited by Wired, Variety and NBC News.
Similarly, a Netflix feature, “The Two Popes,” saw a dramatic jump in viewership. As opposed to “Conclave” and its cast of entirely fictional characters, the 2019 Netflix film is a biographical drama inspired by true events centering on Pope Francis before he took the office and his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI.
Streaming viewership grew 417% day over day, going from 290,000 minutes viewed Sunday to 1.5 million minutes viewed by the end of Monday, according to the Luminate report.
