Netflix's reality competition take on its most successful scripted series ever, Squid Game, just scored the slumping platform's best audience numbers in two months.
Squid Game: The Challenge debuted at No. 1 among the streamer’s English-language TV rankings for the week of November 20-26, with 85.7 million viewing hours and 20.1 million views.
That’s the best number Netflix has had since the fourth season of Sex Education debuted in late September with 108.4 million hours viewed. (But it’s not without controversy, as some contestants from the show have claimed injury and threatened legal action against the streamer.)
The spinoff also boosted Netflix’s most popular series of all time, Squid Game, back onto the non-English TV rankings, where it placed at No. 6 with 13.3 million viewing hours.
Squid Game: The Challenge easily surpassed the prior week’s No. 1 entry, The Crown: Season 6, which dropped to just 29.3 million streaming hours last week.
Meanwhile, Leo, Netflix’s musical comedy Leo, written by Robert Smigel and voice-starring Adam Sandler as Leo the Lizard, a class pet with his sights set on freedom, debuted to 61.7 million viewing hours, scoring Netflix’s best movie opening in three months — and its biggest debut ever for a Netflix animated film.
The film represented a comeback of sorts for comedians Sandler and Bill Burr, who each had soft openings for their last Netflix comedies. Burr’s directorial debut, Old Dads, was released in October with 23.1 million hours. Sandler’s You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah premiered to just 21.3 million viewing hours in August.
Also tallying more than 34 million views for the week of November 20-26, Leo had Netflix’s biggest English-language movie performance since Gal Gadot action film Heart of Stone premiered to 69.6 million viewing hours the week of August 7-13.
