‘The Best Man: The Final Chapters’ Breaks Streaming Records
It’s difficult for films to become successfully adapted into television series, The Best Man seamlessly did so. Nearly a decade after the sequel to the 1999 film was released, a limited series debuted on Peacock. All key players reprised their roles. The anticipation built so much that the series broke records.
‘The Best Man’: The Final Chapters becomes the first Peacock series to make it to the Nielson charts
The eight-episode series premiered on Peacock on Dec. 22. Instead of a weekly rollout, all episodes were immediately made available. Debuting just three days before Christmas, more viewers had time to watch at their leisure.
Per The Jasmine Brand, the series marked Peacock’s highest original series debut in history in an opening weekend. Peacock debuted in 2020. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s dramatic recreation series Bel-Air previously held the title.
The series also landed within the Neilson Top 10 Streaming Chart. It reportedly ranked No. 5 in an early version of the chart. The Best Man: The Final Chapters is Peacock’s first to chart within Nielsen.
Morris Chestnut, one of the stars of the franchise, celebrated the historical feat in an Instagram post. “Thank you for supporting The Best Man: Final Chapters and the entire franchise all these years! You’ve allowed us to share multigenerational stories of love, friendship, brotherhood, family, and more,” he wrote.
The series was originally set to be two separate films
Following the success of the 2013 sequel, fans yearned for more, especially due to the movie ending in a cliffhanger. Writer and director Malcolm Lee revealed he had plans for two additional movies. But the idea for a series made more sense to him once a series was offered.
“Having essentially twice as much as [the length of two films] allowed us to dive deeper into the characters — into their own journeys and give them season arcs over the course of eight hours of storytelling time. It’s definitely more expansive,” Lee told Variety.
Chestnut was excited to reprise his role. “I can tell you this right now, literally, I was on a call recently, and the band is working on getting back together again. There’s some motion. Things are in motion literally as we speak,” he said while appearing on The Real. Before Chestnut’s remarks, Diggs revealed in March 2020 that the project would more than likely be moving forward as a series.
It focused on two major events in the characters’ lives
The Best Man Holiday ended with Quinten Spivey [Terrence Howard] revealing he was getting married. The series picks up during his destination wedding weekend. But things get tense when Harper [Taye Diggs] reveals to the group that he’s been approached to turn his debut best-selling novel Unfinished Business into a film.
The book was the basis of the rift in his friendship with Lance [Chestnut] when it was revealed that the characters were based on actual people and events in Harper’s life. Harper’s past sexual encounter with Lance’s longtime love is exposed in the book.
