‘Squid Game’ Season 2 Cracks Netflix’s Non-English Most Popular List In Just 3 Days After Record Campaign
EXCLUSIVE: Netflix pulled out all the stops for the launch of Squid Game Season 2, and it appears to have paid off.
The highly anticipated seven-episode second season, which launched on December 26, raked in 68M views in its first three days on the streamer. It was No. 1 on the weekly non-English TV list in 92 countries, Netflix says.
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That made it not only the most-watched series of the week, but the best performing title overall — even beating out some hefty competition with Netflix’s flashy Christmas Day NFL games featuring a performance from Beyoncé. Granted, those are not available to watch delayed, so 30M+ live viewers is very impressive.
Squid Game Season 2 has now broken Netflix’s record for most views for a series in its premiere week, which was previously set by Wednesday with 50.1M views.
In fact, in just three days, the second season has already broken onto Netflix’s most popular non-English TV show list at No. 7. It shot past Dear Child, All of Us Are Dead, Berlin Season 1 and Who Killed Sara? Season 1 for the honor.
Squid Game Season 1 also re-entered the weekly non-English TV list at No. 3 with 8.10M views.
At this rate, it’s on a stunning trajectory that could result in Season 2 surpassing its predecessor as Netflix’s biggest title of all time. It’s got more than 80 days to put up another 197M views.
It’s been more than three years since the first season exploded onto the scene, quickly becoming a global phenomenon, reaching 111 million accounts to become Netflix’s first series to surpass 100 million members at launch.
Squid Game is now Netflix’s most-watched series of all time with 265M views in its first 91 days. It has withstood many rivals over the past several years, including Stranger Things and Wednesday. The latter put up a fight with 252M views in that time frame but fell short of beating out the Korean series.
That certainly puts some pressure on Season 2 to perform well, despite the lengthy hiatus, prompting a massive global campaign to reignite interest in the series.
In order to deliver these monster numbers, Netflix held activations across 1 countries from Brazil to Italy to Indonesia, which Deadline can exclusively reveal gathered 6M online and 52,000 in-person fans. Nearly 37,000 people participated in races, mazes, games and more inspired by Squid Game.
For example, Netflix unveiled the Season 2 teaser at Lucca Comics & Games 2024 in Lucca, Italy, after creator, writer and director Hwang Dong-hyuk and stars Lee Jung-jae and Wi Ha-jun hosted a sold out Q&A in Piazza San Michele. In Paris, fans were challenged to a game of Red Light, Green Light on the Champs-élysées.
Netflix held the Season 2 world premiere at Seoul’s Dongdaemun Design Plaza with about 1,000 guests in attendance and more than 300,000 watching via livestream.
Those fan activations managed to drive a whopping 3B impressions across Netflix’s social channels ahead of the Season 2 premiere, which the streamer says surpasses Season 1’s lifetime social impressions. It’s Netflix’s biggest campaign to date — ahead of Stranger Things 4, Bridgerton Season 3, Wednesday and One Piece.
Squid Game is already returning for a third and final season next year, otherwise a renewal would be obvious.
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