Having arrived on Netflix with what Forbes determined was the lowest Rotten Tomatoes audience score (2%) ever for a show or movie garnering at least 5,000 rankings, four-part original miniseries Queen Cleopatra predictably tanked in its first five days on Netflix, capturing only 20.2 million viewing hours for the week of May 8-14.
Plying ancient Egyptian history to a faux documentary format, with Jada Pinkett Smith exec producing and serving as narrator, and African American actor Adele James cast in the title role, Queen Cleopatra arrived on Netflix having already been subject to a racially charged lawsuit in Egypt, the plaintiff charging Netflix and the producers with misrepresenting its historical subject matter.
In the case of Queen Cleopatra, however, quality of content rather than controversy seems to have doomed audience performance.
"It is patchy sub-Game of Thrones cosplay interwoven with academics you’ve never heard of," wrote Camilla Long of the London Times, contributing the mini's 10% Rotten Tomatoes critics aggregation score.
"It's too soapy for serious history fans, and not enough of a soap for viewers who like juicy historical dramas," added the Daily Telegraph's Anita Singh.
And Queen Cleopatra's failure probably wasn't a matter of format, either.
Ironically, it was another TV series, casting a different African-American actor into the role of Elizabethan royalty, Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, that once again led all of subscription streaming, adding slightly to its audience in week 2 with 158.7 million streaming hours.
Meanwhile in films, Jennifer Lopez action-thriller The Mother had a strong Mothers Day weekend debut, capturing 83.7 million streaming hours in just its first three days on Netflix.
