Not even a giant robot doll could stop Squid Game's ongoing success.
On Thursday, Oct. 28, the Netflix drama once again found itself on top of Nielsen's U.S. streaming rankings and landed itself in the 3 Billion Club. Specifically, the Korean hit was streamed over 3 billion minutes over the course of a recent week. Yes, you read that correctly.
Squid Game follows in the footsteps of fellow Netflix series You, Tiger King, Ozark, The Umbrella Academy and The Crown, all of whom have hit this milestone at some point in their TV tenure.
Of course, this isn't entirely surprising, as Squid Game has become a cultural phenomenon of sorts following its Sept. 17 debut on the streamer. In fact, at the end of September, Ted Sarandos, Netflix's co-chief executive officer and chief content officer, confirmed that the show was likely to be the streamer's "biggest non-English-language show" worldwide.
He added, "It's a very good chance it's going to be our biggest show ever."
Case in point: Squid Game had already become No. 1 in 90 countries in under two weeks. And then, on Oct. 12, Netflix confirmed that Squid Game "officially reached 111 million fans," beating a record previously held by Bridgerton.
For those of you who haven't jumped on the Squid Game bandwagon, the series follows a group of strangers struggling with debt—played by Lee Jung-jae, Park Hae-soo, Jung Ho-yeon, O Yeong-su, Heo Sung-tae and more—who agree to play games from their childhood in the hope of winning a large sum of money. Unfortunately, there's a lethal twist to this situation, as those who fail to complete any of the games are killed off.
Intriguing, right? So it's no wonder the series is dominating the cultural conversation.
Though not everyone loves the show, as, earlier this month, basketball star LeBron James was heard criticizing the show's ending. It didn't take long for Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk to respond, telling The Guardian in an interview, "I'm very thankful he watched the whole series. But I wouldn't change my ending. That's my ending. If he has his own ending that would satisfy him, maybe he could make his own sequel."
As for the status of season two? The creator said he's considering it, but added, "I have a very high-level picture in my mind, but I'm not going to work on it straight away. There's a film I really want to make. I'm thinking about which to do first. I'm going to talk to Netflix."
Squid Game is available to stream on Netflix.