Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/September 29 to October 5, 2024

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (September 29 to October 5, 2024)

Prepared with commentary by Igordebraga, Vestrian24Bio, Ollieisanerd, Shuipzv3, -insert valid name here-, and CAWylie.

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Criminals, wars, deceased celebrities, a hurricane, the upcoming American election... the month change has been eventful and heavy!

Rank	Article	Views	Notes/about
1	Lyle and Erik Menendez	4,565,092	These American brothers who were convicted in 1996 of the murders of their parents managed to top the list for the third consecutive week, thanks to a Netflix show (#16) based on their lives and crime.
2	Kris Kristofferson	2,788,936	The American country music star and actor died on September 28 aged 88. Kristofferson had hits like "Me and Bobby McGee" (which topped the charts when covered by Janis Joplin), was a member of the country group the Highwaymen, and his acting roles include 1976's A Star Is Born, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Blade and the 2001 Planet of the Apes. His death leaves Willie Nelson as the last surviving member of the Highwaymen.
3	Joker: Folie à Deux	1,771,197	While a HBO Max series based on a Batman villain missed out, a film based on another Batman villain has made it to the list. The 2019 Joker film (which is unrelated to both the old DCEU and the upcoming new Rebooted DCU, thus being labeled as DC Elseworlds) had a sequel greenlit within a month of its release as it made over $1 billion and went on to win two Academy Awards, while also managing to be nominated for Best Picture, the first DC film to do so. The sequel has Joaquin Phoenix reprising his role as Arthur Fleck/Joker along with the addition of Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn, and somehow the marketing sold Bonnie & Clyde but the film itself was Chicago, a crime\courtroom musical (except in not being a comedy, in spite of the protagonist being a clown!). Just about every critic questioned what director Todd Phillips was doing, and audiences are also not as enthralled by Folie à Deux, with low expectations for the opening weekend's numbers and thus the possibility of the hefty budget that can be as high as $200 million leading to a big box office bomb.
4	Sean Combs	1,310,093	The rapper who once bragged that "It's All About the Benjamins" now needs to see if his fortune estimated in the billion mark can save him from a long stay in prison - hasn't fully worked yet, he was twice denied bail - for a laundry list of accusations, including sex trafficking, racketeering, and overall creation of a criminal enterprise. In the meantime the public discovers which celebrities used to be friends with "Puffy", and musicians like Kesha, Maren Morris and Joe Jonas are removing references to him from their songs.
5	Devara: Part 1	1,211,130	This Tollywood action-drama film starring N. T. Rama Rao Jr (pictured) in his 30th film as a lead actor was released last week and opened to mixed reviews from critics and has so far grossed over ₹370 crore (US$43 million) against a budget of ₹300 crore (US$35 million).
6	Pete Rose	1,188,107	Pete Rose, who died at 83 and was also known as "Charlie Hustle", was named for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team for a career that included three World Series titles, most notably two as part of the Cincinnati Reds team nicknamed "Big Red Machine". Yet his legacy was tarnished when in 1989 an investigation discovered Rose, then the coach of the Reds, was betting on the team's own games, leading to a permanent ban from MLB and subsequently being ineligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame.
7	Deaths in 2024	1,088,743	From #2's work: Yesterday is dead and gone and tomorrow's out of sight. Lord, it's bad to be alone. Help Me Make It Through the Night.
8	Jimmy Carter	1,040,620	The 39th American president already became the longest-lived U.S. president in 2019, and now, defying expectations after nearly two years in hospice care, Carter celebrated his 100th birthday on October 1, becoming the first former president to reach the age of 100.
9	Dikembe Mutombo	993,594	A Congolese basketballer with a great proficiency in blocks and rebounds, earning him the nickname "Mount Mutombo" and four NBA Defensive Player of the Year Awards - he only couldn't get a championship ring, at most being in the 2001 NBA Finals as part of the Philadelphia 76ers - who died at the age of 58 of a brain tumor. Dikembe Mutombo was also known for extensive humanitarian work, including financing a hospital in his hometown of Kinshasa which he named after his mother.
10	John Amos	891,050	This American actor died at age 84 in August, but it wasn't announced until October 1 (even his own daughter didn't know). Amos was famous for portraying the adult Kunta Kinte in the TV miniseries Roots, as well as his role as patriarch James Evans Sr. in the sitcom Good Times, a role in which he was killed off because of Amos' dissatisfaction with how African Americans were portrayed.
11	Adam Brody	856,733	An actor who broke out 20 years ago with The O.C. and has since amassed more roles in TV (StartUp, Single Parents) and film (Ready or Not, Shazam!), and, most recently, #23.
12	Maggie Smith	780,036	The British actress, one of the few to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting, died on 27 September, aged 89. Some of her most-known roles include Jean Brodie in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film series, and Violet Crawley in Downton Abbey.
13	Hassan Nasrallah	770,936	The secretary-general of #15 since 1992, when the previous secretary-general was assassinated by an Israeli airstrike. His leadership ended on 27 September when he was assassinated by an Israeli airstrike.
14	JD Vance	768,623	The Republican vice-presidential candidate for the upcoming US election faced Democratic opponent Tim Walz in a debate October 1st. No debate winner seemed evident, though Vance had a slight lead in surveys, and predictions for the election itself remain extremely close.
15	Hezbollah	729,979	A controversial Lebanese political party and militant group, whose long-running feud with Israel led to them taking advantage of Hamas invading and starting a war last year to fire rockets of their own. Israel kept on fighting back (between October and February, the estimates were 978 Lebanon launches of artillery fire across the border, and 7,948 incidents from Israel), and decided to escalate in September, including the bombing that killed #13.
16	Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story	653,257	The second season of the Netflix biographical anthology series Monster, which is also the second time Ryan Murphy did a true crime show after American Crime Story. Season 1 was about the "Milwaukee Cannibal", and this one is about the parricide brothers from Beverly Hills that top this list.
17	Megalopolis (film)	633,084	Legendary director Francis Ford Coppola (pictured) first conceived this epic trying to draw a parallel between the fall of Rome and the future of the United States in the 1970s, and only managed to put in production in 2019, selling his California wineries to get the necessary $120 million. 5 months after debuting at the Cannes Film Festival, Megalopolis hit North American theaters, where reviewers criticized its writing and audiences were not lured in, opening to an anemic $4 million that was only good for sixth place (right below #5).
18	Gavin Creel	619,702	This American musical theatre actor and songwriter died from a rare type of cancer at the age of 48 on September 30. He had won a Grammy and Tony Award for several of his performances.
19	The Substance	603,592	Like #17, a production that first appeared in Cannes but with a much better reception and even taking the Best Screenplay award at the Festival, in spite of being a movie full of stomach-churning body horror. And it impressively has so far beaten Megalopolis in both total earnings ($16.6 million worldwide that are only $1 million short of the budget) and the weekend rankings.
20	Hurricane Helene	560,588	Helene left a trail of devastation across the Southeastern United States, particularly North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. As of the time of writing, more than 200 deaths have been confirmed, making this the deadliest hurricane to impact the US mainland since 2005's Hurricane Katrina.
21	Deadpool & Wolverine	543,229	While the witchcraft series missed out, the sole MCU film of 2024 returns to the list, after a week of absence.
22	Rosh Hashanah	542,233	The Jewish New Year began this year on October 2.
23	Nobody Wants This	494,579	"An agnostic walks into a synagogue…" might sound like a joke, but it happens in this new Netflix rom-com. Kristen Bell (pictured) meets #11, a rogue rabbi who recently dumped his Jewish girlfriend. Apparently, the actors' chemistry and the respectful consideration of interfaith romance has garnered favorable reviews.
24	Lebanon	490,162	This Levantine country has a long history, from the Phoenicians to the French, and it seems like it is still being written, as only a few days after the assassination of #13, on the 1st of October Israel launched a ground invasion of the country to fight against #15. So far, the invasion has led to thousands of deaths and millions of civilians displaced.
25	Peter Dante	486,817	It could've been the country that just started an invasion of the above. Yet that was #26 behind an article boosted by Reddit, on one of the actors that Adam Sandler always put in his movies before an incident where he was kicked out of the hotel for spewing the N-word (to make it worse, a few years later Dante was arrested for an altercation with his neighbor).