This week, we had a Netflix earnings call where unsurprisingly, Squid Game came up a fair amount. The Korean surrealist drama is far and away the most popular show Netflix has ever made, in any language, and the numbers being put up are…well, even Netflix describes them as “mind-boggling,” far surpassing their expectations for their series. Or really any series.
Last we heard, Squid Game had 111 million viewers a week ago using Netflix’s “chose to watch” metric that only requires people to watch a few minutes of one episode to count. But with everything on that metric, we can still compare to other series.
Now? Squid Game has risen to an astonishing 142 million “member households” that have chosen to watch the series in the first four weeks.
That makes the Netflix all-time top 10 list look even more ridiculously skewed. Squid Game is now nearly double second place, Bridgerton, at 82 million, and is just under double both Lupin and The Witcher. The gap between first and second is 60 million, when the largest gap besides that between two shows on the list is 9 million, between The Witcher and Sex/Life.
- Squid Game: Season 1 (142 million)
- Bridgerton: Season 1 (82 million)
- Lupin: Part 1 (76 million)
- The Witcher: Season 1 (76 million)
- Sex/Life: Season 1 (67 million)
- Stranger Things: Season 3 (67 million)
- Money Heist: Part 4 (65 million)
- Tiger King: Season 1 (64 million)
- The Queen’s Gambit (62 million)
- Sweet Tooth: Season 1 (60 million)
There is no shortage of people pointing out the irony in the anti-capitalist series Squid Game increasing the share value of one of the largest entertainment corporations on earth, and it is now destined to be turned into everything from sellable merchandise to its own video game, in addition to obvious expansion like a second season.
Netflix has not actually publicly greenlit season 2 of Squid Game yet, likely because this is such an unprecedented situation for everyone involved. Obviously writer/director Hwang Dong-hyuk is in a massive power position here in terms of negotiations, though even he admitted he will need writing and directing help for a new season, as he didn’t have one mapped out in his mind ahead of time. In terms of the cast, this was a series that saw almost everyone onscreen dying, and I can only even think of two or three actors who could return, though I won’t say who they are, to avoid survival spoilers.
What we don’t know is if Squid Game is Netflix’s true most popular show ever, because we’re only counting originals here. If we are going with lifetime viewing, I still would have to believe something like The Office, back when it was still on Netflix, was probably more popular overall. But still, this is an insane accomplishment that deserves to continue to be spotlighted.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and its audiobook, and The Earthborn Trilogy, also on audiobook.
