Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/March 26 to April 1, 2017

WP:25

The Top 25 Report

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (March 26 to April 1, 2017)

Prepared with commentary by Serendipodous

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It Floats Slow

Everyone expected Brexit to dominate this week, and, given the insanity which the triggering of Article 50 appears to have awakened in my nation's political class (It seems we're now threatening war with Spain), that could very well yet be true next week. But not this one. This week was simply a retread of last week, with various summer entertainments interspersed with US politics. It was also a surprisingly slow week, with the lowest entry point since May of last year.

For the week of March 26 to April 1, 2017, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Notes
1	WrestleMania 33	Future	887,566	I am not a fan of professional wrestling. I've made that point tersely clear in previous posts. But it's hard for me not to treat this as an event when it tops the list so utterly. Apparently, this was the moment that shifted the art from the era of John Cena to the era of Roman Reigns. I hope he's happy.
2	Beauty and the Beast (2017 film)		802,478	After just 17 days, this "live action" (really more a cgi animation with actors) remake of their 1991 Oscar winning classic has drawn nearly $900 million at the box office. I didn't realise there was such a market for shot for shot remakes of movies everyone agrees were great in the first place, but hey, what do I know? Was it Emma Watson as Belle? I mean, casting Hermione Granger as a determined, bookish fantasy heroine wasn't exactly inspired, but maybe the familiarity worked.
3	Power Rangers (film)		779,478	The reboot of the Power Rangers franchise, which stars young actors such as RJ Cyler and Becky G alongside such established names as Elizabeth Banks and Bryan Cranston, has gained attention for being the first blockbuster film to feature LGBT and autistic superheroes. It has fallen 64% in its second weekend, so it's unlikely to be the cornerstone of a cinematic universe.
4	It (novel)		772,983	Stephen King's phone book-sized novel about a group of outcast kids confronting the same scary clown monster as both children and adults was made into a television miniseries that, thanks to Tim Curry, became the foundation for an entire generation of childhood nightmares. By the looks of the trailer that released this week, the upcoming film adaptation (see below), which replaces Curry with Hemlock Grove's Bill Skarsgård, will be focusing on the kids this time, and jacking up the nightmare.
5	It (2017 film)		694,039	See above.
6	Deaths in 2017		664,348	The most dependable entry on the list falls by 40,000 views but still manages to rise two slots. Sure sign of a slow week.
7	Joe Medicine Crow		701,802	As learned on Reddit this week, the last warrior chief of the American plains, who died almost exactly a year ago at the age of 102, completed the four tests to become a war chief while a private in World War II: touching an enemy without killing him, stealing an enemy's weapon, leading a war party, and stealing fifty horses (from the SS!).
8	April Fools' Day		603,386	The first day of April, perennial party for practical jokers and pranksters, continues to amuse the cynical and infuriate the gullible. Numbers have been falling year on year, though that may simply be a fluke of timing.
9	Ghost in the Shell (2017 film)		514,178	First rule of adapting a cult item: don't alienate the cult. They're the ones who will be explaining the weirdness to the uninitiated masses who will actually make your film a hit. While the furore over the casting of Scarlett Johansson (pictured) in the role of the Japanese heroine Motoko Kusanagi was somewhat overblown (Japan didn't really care, and it's not like anime characters are all that racially discernible anyway) the followers of the 1995 film had more substantive issues to focus on: like that the film adapted scenes from the original without any of their context or emotional punch. Unsurprisingly, the film is underperforming at the box office.
10	Life (2017 film)		487,747	When a movie that owes so transparently much to the Alien franchise gets released barely a month before an actual Alien movie, one must conclude that its makers are either recklessly courageous or moderately insane, and yes, this movie has not done well at the box office. Shame. It has a good cast.
11	PXL-2000	n/a	455,889	According to a Reddit thread this week, this 1987 Fisher-Price camcorder was able to record video on audio cassettes.
12	Thirteen Reasons Why		443,226	Not the recently premiered Netflix series 13 Reasons Why, but the Young Adult novel on which it is based. Since the show styles itself both as "13 Reasons Why" and "Thirteen Reasons Why", the confusion is unsurprising. The plot revolves around a shy nerd, played by Dylan Minnette in the series, (pictured) who receives an elaborate series of video suicide notes from a recently dead classmate.
13	Freedom Caucus		421,151	This far right libertarian grouping within the US Republican Party, (chaired by Mark Meadows, pictured) was largely responsible for the failure of the House to repeal the popular Affordable Care Act; not because they felt that the alternative plan was draconian, but because they didn't think it was draconian enough.
14	Logan (film)		415,045	Hugh Jackman's ninth and final appearance as Wolverine is retaining the interest of Wikipedia readers. It was 6th in the US box office last weekend; but has surrendered its title as biggest film of the year to Beauty and the Beast.
15	Iron Fist (TV series)		409,773	Numbers have fallen more than 60 percent since last week; a bad sign when compared to other members of the Netflix/MCU stable, which tend to have long lives on this list. Reviews for the series - the fourth building up to The Defenders - have not been positive. Not at all.
16	Big Little Lies (TV series)	n/a	402,418	The finale of this HBO miniseries aired on April 2.
17	Iron Fist (comics)		399,480	The martial arts practitioner is being portrayed by Game of Thrones actor Finn Jones in the new Netflix series.
18	Donald Trump		391,214	Donald Trump, apparently despite his own considerable efforts, remains President of the United States. The cheerless round of "What Did Donald Do"? this week involves the ever-murkier and stranger tale of supposed Russian collusion with the Trump campaign during the election, and the bombshell that Michael Flynn, Trump's spectacularly unsuccessful national security adviser, may request immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying.
19	Dave Chappelle		383,478	The American stand-up comedian's first concert specials for 12 years were released by Netflix on March 21; having been recorded in April 2015 & March 2016.
20	List of Bollywood films of 2017		381,350	Summer's here, and that means that we get our seasonal dose of Bollywood. With Holi done and dusted, it will be interesting to see which ones top the charts for Eid weekend.
21	Ghost in the Shell		380,946	Most likely people looking for the movie (see #9), though interest in the long-running anime and manga series may have risen too.
22	The Walking Dead (season 7)		366,169	The season finale of the popular AMC series aired on April 2.
23	Riverdale (2017 TV series)		343,960	The CW's adaptation of Archie Comics reappeared on March 30 after a two-week break.
24	It (character)		340,228	You need a pretty memorable trailer to take our readers this deep. Perhaps it was buried memories of the miniseries...
25	Legion (TV series)		339,519	The season finale of this X-Men-based TV series aired on March 29.

Exclusions

This list excludes the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Since mobile view data became available to the Report in October 2014, we exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (5–6% or less) or almost all mobile views (94–95% or more) because they are very likely to be automated views based on our experience and research of the issue. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish.
The commentator has again opted to exclude XXX (film series) and XXX , as well as perennial exclusion Lali Esposito, which got a surprisingly high mobile count this week.

Note: If you came here from the Signpost article, please take any discussion of exclusions to this article's talk page.