The Stranger Things juggernaut continues to roll on: less than a week after the release of Season 4, Volume 1, it is already smashing viewer records.
According to Netflix’s Top 10 rankings, the show knocked Bridgerton off the top spot for the highest-ever premiere weekend ratings for an English-language series.
That means it was watched for a whopping 287 million hours during the week commencing May 23. When you consider that it was only released on the Friday May 27, that’s a lot of hours – even more than Bridgerton, which held the previous record of 193 million hours over its first weekend.
Season four also appears to have boosted the show’s previous instalments, all three of which jumped back into Netflix’s Top 5 titles for the launch week.
Top of the list was season one, with 28 million hours of viewing time, followed by season three with 24.2 million hours and then season two with 22.2 million hours.
Part of the reason for this massive increase in hours may be due to the extended runtimes of the show’s individual episodes: episode seven clocks in at a whopping 98 minutes long, while the shortest episode lasts just over an hour.
Stranger Things has been a massive hit for the streaming giant since its launch in 2016.
Though the producers have previously promised that the show will only last five seasons – making this run its penultimate one – part two of season four is set to drop on July 1, 2022.
Don’t worry, though: the show’s creators have promised us a satisfying ending.
In a recent interview with Esquire, Gaten Matarazzo (who plays Dustin) said that the show’s creators had factored in the long-term game plan (include the five-season arc) for Stranger Things from almost the beginning.
“I’m going to be heartbroken to leave the show behind, but I’m also just glad that they have an end in sight. I think every show needs that,” he explained.
“I think there’s so many amazing quality projects that do so well and they ride that wave until they realise they didn’t have a stopping point. They didn’t put a brake in the car. That’s essential because it will come to a crashing halt unless you prep for it…
“It needs to be wrapped up at a high point. And I think [the show’s creators] were really keen on that early on.”
