The Top 25 Report

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (March 27 to April 2, 2016) edit

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A Welcome Return To Pop Culture and Death: As predicted last week, we have another breather from American politics. And even Donald Trump's appearance at #3 seems only obligatory based on past momentum. The bloated movie blockbuster Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (#1) reigns for a second week. Death fills up three slots in the top ten, with the passing of American actress Patty Duke (#2), Indian actress Pratyusha Banerjee (#5), and the steadily popular Deaths in 2016 (#6). Notably, cricket-related articles fill up three slots in the Top 25, led by Virat Kohli at #9, a very good showing for a non-American sport. But the appearance of South Korean television show Descendants of the Sun at #23 perhaps is even more unique, fueled by immense popularity in Asia spilling over into the English Wikipedia. (Want to see what the Top 10 articles were on the Chinese Wikipedia this week? See our Bonus report at Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/March 27 to April 2, 2016 China!)

As prepared by Milowent, for the week of March 27 to April 2, 2016, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:

Rank	Article	Views	Notes
1	Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice	2,984,071	A second week at #1, and only down slightly from last week's 3.1 million views. Warner Bros might have cause to breathe again for the first time in three years, as their tent-pole gamble and hopes for an entire franchise have, it seems, paid off. Maybe. With $682 million earned worldwide through April 3, the official founding stone for DC's cinematic universe has gone down a storm, with the studio's highest ever domestic opening weekend. But, having cost an estimated $400 million to make and market, this movie will have to make $800 million worldwide just to break even.
2	Patty Duke	1,465,032	Duke was an Oscar-winning actress and child star of the 1960s, and went on to a long acting career. She was also a well-known advocate for mental health issues. She died at age 69 on March 29 in Idaho, from sepsis caused by a ruptured intestine.
3	Donald Trump	1,222,793	Trump is essentially a perpetual motion machine of views at this point. The slightest piece of news or latest squabble spreads throughout the internet immediately. But this has been going on for so long that there is some anecdotal evidence of "Trump fatigue". The upcoming primary in Wisconsin, where loads of resources are being expended to defeat Trump, will no doubt be heralded as a watershed event if Trump loses to Ted Cruz.
4	April Fools' Day	956,900	The first day of April, perennial party for practical jokers and pranksters, continues to amuse the cynical and infuriate the gullible. Stories about the best historical pranks tend to proliferate around this date, which randomly led this editor to the Taco Liberty Bell, a prank which just celebrated its 20th anniversary.
5	Pratyusha Banerjee	762,706	The popular Indian television actress was found dead on April 1, an apparent victim of suicide at age 24. She first found popularity in India on the show Balika Vadhu.
6	Deaths in 2016	681,175	The annual list of deaths has always been a fairly consistent visitor to this list, averaging about 500,000 views a week. Since the death of David Bowie, this article's views have jumped on average.
7	WrestleMania 32	662,845	Up from #18 and 482K views last week. WWE's annual pay-per-view pantomime took place on April 3, 2016, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, featuring Roman Reigns (pictured). Since the actual event took place the day after this week's chart period, it seems likely that this will be on the list for one more week, as Wrestlemania 31 placed for three staight weeks last year. By the way, if you've never read one of these wrestling-event articles in detail, you should check it out just to see the incredible level of detail and sourcing provided.
8	Easter	643,213	It's hard to remember these days, under the onslaught of bunnies, chocolate eggs and marshmallow peeps, that Easter, not Christmas, is the most sacred date of the Christian calendar. But that date moves around -- see computus. Easter falls on the first Sunday after the vernal equinox for most of the Christian world, but a number of articles appeared this year about trying to fix and consolidate the date.
9	Virat Kohli	602,522	The finals of the 2016 ICC World Twenty20 (#20, see also #12) cricket championship were held in India on April 3. Kohli was the captain of the Indian squad and the subject of much press attention for his performances.
10	Gal Gadot	513,404	Up from #21 and 442K views last week. The Israeli actress and former combat instructor has grown in popularity since being announced as DC Cinematic Universe's anointed Wonder Woman (#19), and the first official live-action Wonder Woman since Lynda Carter in the 70s.
11	Zaha Hadid	490,560	Hadid was an Iraqi-born British architect who died on March 31 at age 65. She was the first woman and the first Muslim to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
12	ICC World Twenty20	485,47	If there is one thing to show how powerful the Indian presence on the English Wikipedia is, it would be cricket. I mean sure, cricket's popular in England, but English topics don't usually make it up here. Twenty20 cricket is a leaner, faster version of the game that lasts for three hours instead of three days (no, that isn't an exaggeration) and has made it a bit more like baseball. And this year, the world championship was held in India, with the final on April 3.
13	Deadpool (film)	484,949	Up from #24 and 406K views last week. If Warner Bros wanted to scare itself straight after the high of Batman v Superman's opening numbers, they could always look to Marvel/Fox's Deadpool, which has so far made $754 million worldwide on a $58 million budget.
14	Ronnie Corbett	470,009	This Scottish comedian died on March 31, 2016. He was best known for his long association with Ronnie Barker in the BBC television comedy sketch show The Two Ronnies.
15	The Walking Dead (season 6)	459,584	One week from its season finale, story arcs are tying up with multiple bangs in this AMC series.
16	United States	456,346	Not often in the Top 25, but always a popular article. Up from 333K views last week, which was #42 on the raw WP:5000.
17	Sean Astin	448,956	This actor is also the son of Patty Duke (#2).
18	Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2016	444,050	Twitter keeps telling me insistently that Bernie Sanders can still win.
19	Wonder Woman	438,510	See #10.
20	2016 ICC World Twenty20	403,674	See #12
21	Monica Lewinsky	399,039	Views spiked on March 31, due to a Reddit thread titled "TIL Monica Lewinsky couldn't get a full-time job for 17 years after she left the Pentagon in 1997." As a young woman, Lewinsky had a brief dalliance with U.S. President Bill Clinton, and has unfortunately met a lifetime of unwanted negative publicity as a result.
22	Henry Cavill	394,354	Cavill plays Superman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (#1).
23	Descendants of the Sun	382,535	This is a fairly unique entry for the English Wikipedia -- a South Korean television series. The Korean drama has been widely popular in Asia, including in China, which is creating a wide enough audience wishing to read about it in English. The Korean version of the article had only 48K views last week compared to 382K in English, though the Chinese version had 422K views. The military theme of the series is part of its appeal in South Korea, and in China it's such a success that it has spawned tabloid reports "of a woman who nearly went blind binge-watching the show and another drama, when her 18-hour marathon session triggered acute glaucoma." Song Joong-ki (pictured) is a star of the show, to the chagrin of jealous husbands in China.
24	Ben Affleck	374,473	Affleck plays Batman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (#1). The daily view counts suggest help from the viral "Sad Affleck" video, which focused on Affleck's "sad" (probably just tired) reaction to an interview asking about negative reviews of the film.
25	List of The Flash (2014 TV series) episodes	364,473	Fans of the American television show The Flash were probably dismayed to learn of a three week-break before its next scheduled episode will air.

Exclusions edit

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 also exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (~2% or less) or almost all mobile views (~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.

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