Season 2 of ‘Squid Game’ sets Netflix viewership record for premiere week

On By Littum

The first season of Play octopus is the biggest show in Netflix history. Season two promises to be just as big.

The Korean hit scored a record number of views during its opening weekend, the streamer says. It shows internal figures from Netflix Play octopus season two with 68 million views worldwide (as measured by total viewing hours, 487.6 million, divided by its running time of 7 hours, 10 minutes) in the four days following its December 26 premiere. It smashes the previous week’s record set by Wednesday (50.1 million views) in November 2022.

The series’ first four days of release have already put season two on Netflix top 10 of all time for non-English language series: It currently sits in seventh place, just behind part two of Lupine (68.4 million views). Another week view will probably move Play octopus season two into second place on the list, behind only season one. Netflix’s top 10 lists include views of a show or movie in the first 91 days of release.

Season one of Play octopus tallied 265.2 million views over the first 91 days. Season two is already a little more than 25 percent of the way to the total.

Play octopus was no. 1 series in 92 of the 93 countries Netflix lists in its rankings for the week 23-29. December. The only outlier was the US, where season two ranked behind the streamer’s two Christmas Day NFL games.

The release of season two also resulted in increased viewing of season one. It ranked third on the non-English language series chart for the week with 8.1 million views (67.1 million hours watched) worldwide. (The Norwegian disaster miniseries La Palma is second with 12.2 million views.)

Season two of Play octopus takes place roughly two years after the events of the first season, with the victor Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) re-entering the game in an attempt to find and take down those responsible for it, including the front man (Lee Byung-hun). Series creator and showrunner Hwang Dong-hyuk has said that the series will end with a third season, currently set to premiere next year.