American singer-songwriter 'Mariah Carey's Magical Christmas Special' debuted on Apple TV+ on Friday. While Apple TV+ does not release viewership data, the sources close to the steaming platform confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter on Monday (local time) that Carey's special hit No. 1 in more than 100 countries.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the song features Ariana Grande, Jennifer Hudson, Billy Eichner, Snoop Dogg, Jermaine Dupri and narrator Tiffany Haddish in a story that unfolds as Carey is recruited to the North Pole to help Santa Claus solve a holiday cheer crisis.
It arrived with a compon soundtrack that was released exclusively on Apple Music on December 4 before hitting other platforms on Friday. It featured new interpretations of some of Carey's holiday classics, and the album is a bonafide hit, too, scoring the largest number of holiday album first-day streams on Apple Music.
The much-buzzed-about song 'Oh Santa!' - featuring the first pairing of Carey with Grande and Hudson - briefly topped the Apple Music charts at No. 1 across the globe. (It has since been displaced by Carey's 'All I Want for Christmas is You.') The 'Oh Santa!' music video currently has been viewed north of 14.7 million times.
Meanwhile, Carey's perennial holiday hit, 'All I Want for Christmas Is You,' is skyrocketing on 'Billboard's Hot 100 chart', moving to No. 2 this week from last week's position at No. 14. The song was first released in 1994 and made its way to No. 1 last year, earning Carey her 19th No. 1 single.
As per The Hollywood Reporter, Carey executive produced the special with Ian Stewart, Raj Kapoor and Ashley Edens for Done + Dusted. BAFTA winner Hamish Hamilton and Oscar nominee and Golden Globe winner Roman Coppola teamed to direct from a script by Caroline Fox.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the songstress Carey said that the most important thing for her in terms of a vision for the special was that the spirit of Christmas came through during a challenging 2020 dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
She explained, "I know that for me, there's a certain spirit that happens during that time of year. I was even thinking about it the other day, sitting around wondering, why is it different for me when I look at Christmas decorations or decorate? But it is."
"There's just a different feeling that I get. It's like an actual, tangible feeling that comes over me that I just want everybody to feel this happy."I know everybody can't, but I wish that everybody could have the mindset of let's really make it through. Let's be unstoppable and power through this."
( With inputs from ANI )
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