Stranger Things season 4 got over 1.4 billion views but it didn’t break Squid Game’s record

Stranger Things season 4 was a monumental success for Netflix, generating Emmy nominations, tons of praise, insane social media interaction and more than 1.4 billion views. But despite all of that, it wasn’t quite enough for the sci-fi show to dethrone Squid Game.

According to a new report from Variety, the second volume of Stranger Things season 4 didn’t break the South Korean survival drama series’ record.

The way these numbers are tabulated is a little confusing, but it mostly comes down to how many viewerships hours a series can drum up in its first 28 days of premiering.

Stranger Things season 4 doesn’t break Squid Game’s record

The fourth season ended its run with 1.4 billion hours viewed compared to Squid Game‘s 1.7 billion. What’s even more impressive is that Squid Game only had nine episodes, equating to about eight hours of content, whereas season 4 was approximately 13 hours long due to its supersized episodes.

Even with Stranger Things having almost five extra hours of content, it wasn’t enough to push it into the top position as most popular Netflix season of all time.

It’ll be interesting to see how Stranger Things season 5 fares. It is expected to premiere in the summer of 2024. Considering the fifth season is going to be the show’s final season, it will be interesting to see if it can break that record next time around.

But there is also Squid Game season 2 to consider. Will these two monumental Netflix shows keep battling it out, or at least until Stranger Things ends? It’s still not clear when Squid Game season 2 is expected to come out.

There’s also Bridgerton to consider, which is another one of Netflix’s biggest shows, although it’s numbers aren’t quite on par with the other two just yet.

We also know that Netflix is planning on investing in a big way in both franchises with at least one Stranger Things spin-off in development and a Squid Game reality show.