Stranger Things continues to prove why it’s one of Netflix’s biggest series: it has now racked up more than one billion hours of viewing time, making it only the second title to do so.
Season four – the second volume of which was released on July 1 – follows the lives of Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), a supernaturally-powered teen, and her friends, as they fight off supernatural threats in the town of Hawkins, Indiana.
However, the show has stiff competition if it wants to become Netflix’s most-viewed series ever: that plaudit goes to South Korean horror-thriller Squid Game, which remains the platform’s most popular title.
In its first 28 days since launching, Squid Game racked up an astonishing 1.65 billion total hours viewed – meaning that Stranger Things still has some way to go (though it already counts as Netflix’s most popular English-language TV series).
Currently, Stranger Things is fighting it out with the newest season of The Umbrella Academy, which launched on June 23 and was viewed for 88 million total hours during its first week on air.
Originally based on a comic book, The Umbrella Academy is now in its third season and tells the story of the Hargreeves siblings, who find themselves having to avert the end of the world for a third (!) time after jumping timelines.
In the meantime, Stranger Things looks set to continue its dominance over the charts for its penultimate season.
In addition to sparking a Kate Bush revival (it was recently revealed that Bush, whose song Running Up That Hill features in Vol 1, earned $2.3m in royalties as a result of the show), the final episodes of season four saw character deaths, climactic battles and a showdown between villain Vecna and the Hawkins gang.
In a recent interview with the Guardian, Joseph Quinn (who plays Eddie) said that the final was “carnage”.
“I can say there’s a guitar scene and that the scale and ambition are astonishing. All the seeds that have been planted bear fruit, and it’s just carnage. You know the finale is two and a half hours, right? Ending with this monster, feature-length episode is so bold."
Director Shaun Levy also told the Hollywood Reporter that the final episodes were “as emotional as they are cinematic.”
“Holy shit, they are definitely a treat for the eyes, but they punch you right in the heart. So that’s what I’ll say about that.”
It seems that audiences agree.
