Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (August 16 to 22, 2015)[edit]

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Summary: Late this week, but not much to say. If you want a quick summation of this week's list, it's "last week, but more so." Straight Outta Compton seems to have struck a nerve with the American public, taking up the first five slots on the list, and nine slots overall. Bollywood and India generally continued their surge this week, with five slots.

As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of August 16 to 22, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Notes
1	Eazy-E		1,610,383	Numbers have more than doubled for the founding member of N.W.A, whose death from AIDS at the age of just 31 forms the emotional climax of the film Straight Outta Compton.
2	Straight Outta Compton (2015 film)		812,153	The biopic of the short-lived but electrifying hip-hop group N.W.A was released on August 14 to superb reviews and blockbuster business- its $56 million opening weekend gross was higher than those for Terminator Genisys and Pixels combined, and it has since gone on to gross more than $120 million. It's interesting to note that African Americans make up just 12% of the US population, and films aimed specifically at that market, like those of Tyler Perry, are considered hits if they reach $60 million after their entire runs. That shows the breadth of this the movie's appeal across racial lines. That the film's story chimed so well with recent events in America likely also played a role. Whether it manages to play as well overseas will be tested next week.
3	N.W.A		1,078,341	Their heyday lasted all of four years, but the members of this pioneering group would go on to create their own industry and bring gangsta rap to the mainstream.
4	Dr. Dre		1,062,428	Far and away the most successful talent to emerge from N.W.A, Dr. Dre would go on to shepherd talents such as Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Xzibit, 50 Cent, and Kendrick Lamar, and ultimately become the richest man in hip hop, after Apple Inc.'s purchase of his company Beats Electronics earned him $620 million. He has wondered in the past if people have forgotten him; well the release of Straight Outta Compton has put that fear to rest. The soundtrack for Straight Outta Compton is Dre's first album in 16 years, and opened at #2 at the US chart amid critical acclaim. But his co-producing credit on the Straight Outta Compton film has also drawn some negative attention to its apparent ignorance of Dre's abusive past with women, for which Dre has copiously mea culpa-ed this week, no doubt to clear the air with Apple.
5	Ice Cube		1,006,982	While still very much a rapper, the onetime N.W.A member is now arguably better known as an actor and a filmmaker. At the suggestion of John Singleton, he adapted his lyrical talents into screenwriting, and the result was the hit Friday film series, which introduced the world, for better or worse, to Chris Tucker. He also starred in a number of hit films including Are We There Yet? and Ride Along. And his son is carrying on the family business by playing him in Straight Outta Compton, but before you cry nepotism, the kid's getting good reviews.
6	Ashley Madison		898,250	Well, they said they were going to do it, and they did. "The Impact Team", a group of hackers of definite if somewhat vague moral purpose, became so incensed with the cheating date site's misleading of their supposedly 33 million-strong clientèle (in fact, only 1 in 3000 of their female accounts are real) that they threatened to publish the details of said clientèle online and ruin their lives. Once again guys, your rationales are decent but your targeting needs work. Anyway, the company didn't back down, and now those names are on the Internet for all to see. Result? Several broken marriages, at least two suicides, and the embarrassment of several high-profile individuals, including, in a delicious bit of irony, the CEO of Ashley Madison.
7	Stephen Hawking		718,775	The former Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, black hole theorist and latter-day science icon was a long-term resident of this list last year, thanks to the release of The Theory of Everything. Now he's back, probably due to his voice synthesizer technology will soon be available for free.
8	Jared Fogle		695,536	Sometimes the logic of hitch-hiking plays out over a grand scale. When you make the gamble to pick someone you've never met off the street, you can't complain if he turns out to be a sexual predator. But when you make him your spokesperson, pay him a million dollars a year to represent you to the public, things get a lot more complicated, as Subway learned this week when Fogle, who had shot to fame after losing weight on the "Subway diet", pleaded guilty to child pornography charges. Even his foundation to combat child obesity turned out to be a massive scam, skimming as much as $2 million a year and producing no charitable work.
9	Donald Trump		657,675	Recently the Donald got his biggest crowd to date (though he failed to half-fill the stadium he booked) in apocalyptically anti-immigrant Alabama, whose junior Senator, Jeff Sessions, has actually proposed curbing legal immigration to the US; a proposal even Ted Cruz wouldn't support. But he was still a consultant on Donald's immigration plan, which would effectively extend the frighteningly harsh Alabama laws nationwide, and push the countries 11 million undocumented migrants to "self deport". In other news, Fox News has circled the wagons around their host Megyn Kelly after Donald's Twitter storm against her, potentially souring what had been until then a mutually beneficial relationship.
10	Jason Day (golfer)		635,201	The Australian golfer won his first major tournament this week, storming the 2015 PGA Championship and scoring a record 20 strokes under par.
11	Suge Knight		606,672	A onetime collaborator with Dr Dre, Marion "Suge" Knight (the name is pronounced like "sugar" without the "-ar") appears in the film Straight Outta Compton, played by R. Marcus Taylor. The business practices of this record producer owed more to John Gotti than George Martin. Currently in jail on probation charges, Knight has long been suspected of having a hand in the murder of rapper rival Biggie Smalls, and even that of Tupac Shakur, despite having been in the car with him when he was shot. If plans for a Tupac-centric sequel go ahead, expect his role to be massively expanded.
12	Deaths in 2015		532,252	The viewing figures for this article have been remarkably constant; fluctuating week to week between 450 and 550 thousand, apparently heedless of who actually died.
13	Jerry Heller		515,918	The former manager of N.W.A, who brought the band to national attention and went to bat for them and their art, was nonetheless accused of swindling them out of their earnings, accusations of which ultimately led to the breakup of the band. He is played by Paul Giamatti in Straight Outta Compton.
14	Brothers (2015 film)		456,388	The Bollywood "remake" of the American film Warrior starring Akshay Kumar (pictured) has made Rs 1.23 billion ($18.6 million) worldwide in its first 12 days of release
15	SummerSlam (2015)	Future	399,589	WWE's latest pay-per-view pantomime took place on August 23, 2015, at Barclays Center in Brooklyn (tomorrow on this list).
16	List of Bollywood films of 2015		363,917	With the Bollywood summer season now in full swing, it's getting hard to keep up with the new releases, overshadowed as they are by current massive hits like Baahubali: The Beginning, so people turn to Wikipedia for help.
17	Bajrangi Bhaijaan		360,860	Initially intended as Muslim-targeted counterprogramming to the raging box office tsunami of Baahubali: The Beginning, this Bollywood spectacular starring Salman Khan (pictured) has become a sensation in its own right, crossing the Rs 6 billion ($91.6 million) mark at the worldwide box office this week.
18	Fantastic Four (2015 film)		347,590	So yeah. This movie happened. As I've said many times, movies get on this list for two reasons: box office and controversy. Straight Outta Compton was lucky enough to have both; this one? Well, it looks like I have my work cut out explaining the controversy because whatever's pushing this movie up the chart, it sure ain't the box office. But be warned: this is gonna get complicated. By now you're probably aware that the latest attempt to make a film franchise out of Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four title is one of the biggest box office bombs in recent years. And if you're wondering why, it's because no one wanted to make it in the first place. The contract that Marvel signed with 20th Century Fox back in 1994 includes a sunset clause ensuring that if Fox does not make use of the property within a certain amount of time, Marvel can take the rights back. Yes, this movie is, in essence, a $120 million contractual obligation. When Marvel signed their contract they were close to bankruptcy; now they're a major competitor in the film industry and a subdivision of the gargantuan Disney corporation. Fox isn't keen to hand an advantage to its rival. And "rival" is putting it mildly. Marvel cancelled the Fantastic Four comic rather than give Fox the rights to any new characters, and has even banned the introduction of new characters into the X-Men series, which Fox also owns the rights to. Since rising to prominence, Marvel Studios has managed to claw back the rights to most of its characters, as other companies have proven inept at adapting them to the screen. Even Sony, who owns the rights to Spider-Man, agreed to go Dutch on a Marvel-made reboot of the character after The Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel both failed. Fox remains the only major hold-out, and expectations that the film's abysmal performance will lead the team back to the Marvel fold have been spiralling in recent days, up to and including a change.org petition. That's probably unlikely. Most pundits agree that Fox will burn before it gives up, and a sequel is still planned.
19	Judith Sheindlin		346,680	As learned in a Reddit thread this week, "Judge Judy" earns $45 million a year for 52 days of work. Still, can't really hold it against her, since everyone loves her show.
20	MC Ren		344,363	This former member of N.W.A has done fairly well for himself in the intervening years, despite having a lower profile than Dr Dre or Ice Cube. He is played by Aldis Hodge in Straight Outta Compton
21	Baahubali: The Beginning		416,947	At $41 million, this sprawling, two-part historical epic is the most expensive film in Indian history (no, it isn't actually Bollywood, since it was made in South India, much to Bollywood's chagrin). Starring the Telugu actor Prabhas (pictured), the first part, subtitled "The Beginning", broke box office records upon its release on July 10, earning Rs 2.15 billion ($34 million) worldwide in just 5 days. At Rs 5.77 billion ($88 million) worldwide to date, it is now chasing Bajrangi Bhaijaan in the race to unseat PK as the highest grossing Indian film of all time.
22	A. P. J. Abdul Kalam		341,155	The sustained surge of views this scientist and reluctant politician received upon his death on July 25 at the age of 83 is merely a reflection of the regard in which he was held by his fellow Indians. A Muslim in a predominantly Hindu country, he rose to the very top of the political ladder, first as a developer of India's missile and nuclear programs, and then as President. Despite adhering to Islam, he considered himself an Indian and drew much inspiration from his country's Hindu heritage. As a result, his one term as President was one of the most popular in his country's history. A lifelong advocate of technology, he believed that India could become a developed country through embracing and expanding its knowledge base.
23	DJ Yella		332,309	Probably the lowest-profile of all former N.W.A members, he has spent the majority of his career directing porn movies. Yes, really. He is played by Neil Brown Jr. is Straight Outta Compton.
24	Morton Downey, Jr.		329,872	The notoriously loudmouthed 80s TV talk show host, who prefigured the era of Fox News, had his biopic documentary air on CNN this week.
25	Inglourious Basterds		326,335	As learned in a Reddit thread this week, Adam Sandler (pictured) was originally cast as the "Bear Jew" in Quentin Tarantino's refuge in audacity from Holocaust denial but had a schedule conflict so Eli Roth was cast instead.

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.