Despite logging an insane amount of hours for Netflix, Stranger Things 4 still couldn’t beat Squid Game as the most popular series on the streaming platform. According to new data that examines the first 28 days of a show’s availability (in this case, Stranger Things 4: Volume 2, which capped off the latest season), the supernatural series fell just shy of the viewing time that Squid Game racked up as it became a global phenomenon.
It’s an impressive victory for the South Korean series, especially when you factor in Stranger Things 4‘s massive episode lengths, which if you haven’t heard, were crazy long. The fourth season had almost double the runtime of Squid Games, but that wasn’t enough to take out the competition. Via Variety:
Ultimately, “Stranger Things” Season 4 ended its run with 1.4 billion hours viewed, compared to “Squid Game’s” 1.7 billion. Important to note is the running time of both seasons: “Squid Game” is approximately 8 hours long in total, while “Stranger Things” Season 4 is approximately 13 hours long, but the 5-hour advantage of the Duffer brothers’ sci-fi hit was still not enough to match Hwang Dong-hyuk’s South Korean drama.
While Stranger Things might not be the reigning champ of Netflix this time around, the fan anticipation for Stranger Things 5 is through the freaking roof. Thanks to the fourth season’s epic story, killer soundtrack via Kate Bush and Metallica, and something called a… Vecnussy (?), the show is more popular than ever. If it brings that momentum into the final season, it could be enough to take out Squid Game, provided that show’s second season doesn’t shatter even more records, which is definitely in the cards.
(Via Variety)