'Stranger Things' season 4 crosses Netflix's 1 billion hours watch time milestone, next to 'Squid Game'
Stranger Things is turning it up to Eleven, as the Netflix show has become the streaming platform's second show to surpass the billion-hour watching mark.
Per Hollywood news site Deadline, the supernatural horror series clocked in over 1.15 billion hours of view time from Netflix subscribers after releasing the second volume of their fourth season last July 1. It is now the most-watched English language show on the platform.
Despite the huge win, it still comes second to the Korean drama Squid Game's 1.6 billion hours during its first month.
It should also be noted that Stranger Things 4 had a huge advantage over the Korean series, as they boasted longer run times per episode, with its season finale The Piggyback running over two hours long. Squid Game season one had nine episodes running from 30 to 60 minutes.
With over two years since the last season, Stranger Things fans also apparently had a catch-up marathon before the release of the last two episodes, as viewers watched 34.5M hours of season one, 30.3M hours of season two, and 30.3M hours of season 3 this past first week of July alone.
Meanwhile, the upcoming fifth season of Stranger Things is set to be its finale, with its creators calling the fourth season "the beginning of the end."
"Seven years ago, we planned out the complete story arc for Stranger Things," shared Matt and Ross Duffer in a statement last February. "At the time, we predicted the story would last four to five seasons. It proved too large to tell in four we are now hurtling toward our finale."
"There are still many more exciting stories to tell within the world of Stranger Things; new series, new adventures; new unexpected heroes."
The writing process for the fifth and final season is set to begin this August.
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— Stranger Things (@Stranger_Things) February 17, 2022