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Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/December 23 to 29, 2018

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The Top 25 Report


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Prepared with commentary by igordebraga (with help from Stormy clouds)

← Last week's report – Next week's report →

Netflix subs aren't cheep

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Every year since 2014, the Top 25 Report of holiday week is topped by Hollywood. And 2018 managed to get a top entry as dark as a recently deceased Carrie Fisher: the Netflix post-apocalyptic thriller Bird Box, which also brought along the original novel and its two main actors. Who'd have guess that as a way to spend Christmas (#14)\Boxing Day (#7)\Kwanzaa (#21). Actual theatrical releases also have a heavy presence, with four movies apiece from Hollywood and India (with the former also having the one depicted in Bohemian Rhapsody, and the latter, their list of highest-grossing films). Some celebrities also show up without needing to join the death list (#8), such as the star of Aquaman (#5) and his wife (#17), a former child star (#12) getting married to an actor (#10), and another former child star (#11) appearing in a commercial. Finishing the list, a tragedy in Indonesia (#16) and showing the week is really slow, the World Cup that ended back in July!(#25)

For the week of December 23 to 29, 2018, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank Article Class Views Image About
1 Bird Box (film) 3,044,258
Rock musician Josh Malerman wrote a post-apocalyptic novel whose Netflix adaptation just continues to bring in attention, despite reviewers (and this here writer) finding it far from impressive. In a story that's roughly A Quiet Place meets The Happening, Earth is invaded by creatures that when seen, drive people to insanity and\or suicide. Thus people are forced to live recluse in houses with covered windows (and, to justify the title, with birds, as they chirp like crazy in presence of the beasts), while wearing blindfolds whenever going outside is required.
2 Bird Box 1,698,325
3 Aquaman (film) 1,224,616
Back in 2005, the prospect of an Aquaman hit movie at most earned a joke on Entourage. 13 years later, the Atlantean superhero is star of the sole DC Comics movie of the year, and is one of the 100 highest-grossing movies ever. How things change.
4 Zero (2018 film) 1,207,417 Bollywood makes a movie about a man with dwarfism (Shah Rukh Khan) facing both a love triangle where he's disputed by a highly talented scientist with cerebral palsy (Anushka Sharma, pictured) and an alcoholic film star (Katrina Kaif), and eventually the trials to join a mission to Mars. Oh India, you never cease to surprise us. In spite of being preceded by much fanfare, Zero has been deemed a huge disappointment, having failed to please critics or audiences, and seems like it will struggle to cover its 200 crore budget that makes it one of the most expensive Indian movies ever.
5 Jason Momoa 1,138,412
The star of our #3 finally got less views than the movie itself. On the other hand, all the attention he got this December earned him a spot in the yearly list.
6 K.G.F: Chapter 1 1,109,461
Another Indian movie, from Kannada cinema (sadly, no *ollywood nickname: instead, it's known as Chandanavana), where Yash (pictured) is a poor boy who is eventually hired to kill a big figure in the Kolar Gold Fields. It is already the highest grossing Kannada film, a fact that bodes very well for the impending second chapter.
7 Boxing Day 948,251
December 26 is also a holiday in certain Anglophone countries and subsequently a big retailer deal - if these images are any indicative, only a boxer can punch his way through these crowds!
8 Deaths in 2018 770,966
52 weeks straight with an entry regarding the recently deceased! Should come as no surprise that it's #1 in the 2018 report.
9 Sandra Bullock 681,039
One of America's Sweethearts since at least 1994 (though some people met her a bit earlier), owner of an Academy Award (and a Razzie) and star of hit movies including this year's Ocean's 8... and yet, if this is any indication, some people only learned about Sandra Bullock because she stars in Bird Box (#1). What is wrong with the world?!
10 Liam Hemsworth 678,006
Gale from The Hunger Games is now officially Mr. Miley Cyrus (#12).
11 Macaulay Culkin 673,314
Christmas season is just not the same without Home Alone (which just like the best Christmas movie ever, is about spending the holidays fending off invaders), and its star Macaulay Culkin returned to the role of Kevin McCallister in a Google Assistant ad. He also played Home Alone games with the Angry Video Game Nerd and has had weird moments reminiscent of Culkin's messy former child star phase. Speaking of that...
12 Miley Cyrus 599,316
It's been five years since the former Hannah Montana went crazy and among other things swung naked from demolition tools. If the fact she's now married to our #10 is any indicative, Miley seems to have got better.
13 Freddie Mercury 579,076
The king of Queen, whose biopic has earned a whopping $700 million worldwide, and in 2018 only saw four topics get more Wikipedia views than him: Killer Queen Duchess, Another (of just about every)One Bites the Dust, Play the (Beautiful) Game (#25), and It's (the End of) a Hard Life (#8).
14 Christmas 534,129
Borrowing from one of #11's hit movies:
15 Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 537,843 Lots of praise have been raised regarding the animated team-up of Spider-Man with the alternate versions of himself. All the more reason for me to be mad at how my country will only release it on January 10.
16 Krakatoa 524,515
This Indonesian volcano erupted again, and while it was nothing compared to the famous 1883 eruption, it was enough to cause a deadly tsunami (just 14 years after those waves swept the nation in late December; hard not to feel sad).
17 Lisa Bonet 503,243
Continued interest in our #5 also brings along his missus. Someday Commons needs to get a picture of her so we can ditch this one of her ex and their daughter!
18 Trevante Rhodes 493,575
Ever since his breakthrough as the adult version of Moonlight's protagonist, Trevante Rhodes has been keeping himself busy. After fighting an alien hunter in The Predator, he's one of the main actors in Bird Box (#1).
19 Bumblebee (film) 493,195
For all the diminishing returns the Transformers movies have given in over a decade, spin-off Bumblebee (starring the eponymous Autobot, who can turn into a Beetle - eat that, Herbie! - along with Hailee Steinfeld) finally represented a step in the right direction, as ditching the frantic Michael Bay filmmaking and the overly complicated plot to just make a fun movie that certainly feels like something made in the 1987 that is the setting, to critical acclaim. Too bad coming out in a busy Christmas season just one year after the disastrous Transformers: The Last Knight means the movie is struggling to repeat the financial success of its predecessors (it spent two weekends behind #3 and #22 in the U.S., and has barely surpassed its $135 million budget worldwide).
20 2.0 (film) 489,006
Well, that's an adequate rank. 2.0 cost more than double to make than plain Zero (#6), but unlike it has been a runaway box office hit (#24) with good reviews.
21 Kwanzaa 473,283
The African-American holiday celebrated right after Christmas, namely between December 26 to January 1.
22 Mary Poppins Returns 473,003
52 years later, the magical British nanny is back in theaters (or in the film itself, 20+ years later, she's back in the Banks household), now portrayed by Emily Blunt (pictured) and being just as lovely as Julie Andrews in the original (though Dame Andrews doesn't appear, feeling a cameo would just upstage Blunt). Critics have liked it and audience response has been warm, even if not enough to oust #3 (where Andrews has a small voice role!) from atop of the box office. My main gripe with the movie is not having a Michael Rooker cameo.
23 Simmba 446,636
No, not the lion - wait until July. Instead, this one is an Indian film, spin-off of the Singham movies, about antiheroic orphan-turned-cop Sangram "Simmba" Bhalerao, played by Ranveer Singh.
24 List of highest-grossing Indian films 460,712
Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (starring Prabhas, picture) is now the only Tamil production to have grossed more than 2.0 (#20), as well as the only movie that made more money in India. (in the global figures featured in the article, 2.0 is sixth, and will hardly make enough crore to enter the top 5)
25 2018 FIFA World Cup 405,032
Just to show how people are barely caring as the year ends: people wanting to remember that fun football month in Russia (#2 in our yearly list!) managed to get higher views than #10's brother Thor (#26), the predecessor to #22 (#27), and the beautiful female lead of #3 (#28).

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