Netflix says Squid Game is ‘biggest ever series at launch’ with 111 million viewers

Streaming giant Netflix has announced that South Korean TV show, Squid Game, is its ‘biggest ever series at launch’ with 111 million fans watching the show since its debut on September 17.

Written and directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk, Squid Game is a South Korean fictional survival drama television series where contestants play a set of children’s games with deadly penalties.

Squid Game is the first Netflix TV series to reach 111 million global accounts in its first 17 days on the service and it is equally the first to surpass 100 million in its first 28 days on the service.

The record with the highest numbers was hitherto held by “Bridgerton” which was watched by 82 million households in its first 28 days.

According to CNN, the series is No. 1 on Netflix’s Top 10 lists in 94 countries around the world and the platform’s first-ever Korean series to reach No. 1 in the United States.

Though the 9-part drama series has received critical acclaim and attracted international attention, it is bloody and violent. The story is centred around Seong Gi-hun (played by Lee Jung-jae), a divorced and indebted chauffeur, who is invited to play a series of children’s games with 455 other individuals for a chance at a large cash prize of ₩45.6 billion.

Squid game has however been a successful film and lends credit to Netflix’s ability to craft a worldwide hit. Netflix currently has about 209 million subscribers globally having surpassed the 200 million mark early this year.

“When we first started investing in Korean series and films in 2015, we knew we wanted to make world-class stories for the core K-content fans across Asia and the world,” said Minyoung Kim, Netflix’s vice president of content for Asia Pacific, excluding India. “Today, Squid Game has broken through beyond our wildest dreams.”