Despite Netflix making seemingly unpopular decisions with their business model, such as releasing an ad-supported multi-tier subscription plan and attempting to end password sharing, their original content has seen a bevy of major hits over the past year. Forbes reports that despite other services sporting big franchises with names like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, etc., etc., Netflix has had a sneaky great 2022, with three of their best-performing shows in company history all being released this year.
The return of the little show that kind of started it all, Stranger Things, broke series and overall records for Netflix when it debuted its fourth season. The show’s use of Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill even made the 1985 song a monster comeback as it topped the Billboard charts worldwide and began seeing a huge uptick in download numbers. The much anticipated season was the second to cross a billion hours watched after another Netflix hit, Squid Game.
Then, we have the grimy Dahmer series that garnered controversy as the family of the victims of the serial killer portrayed objected to the nature of their loved ones being exploited for a dramatic streamer. However, the show became so popular, that after Stranger Things, it became the third to cross a billion hours watched and helped to greenlight an expanded “Monster” series.
And finally, the sleeper hit of the fall season came in the form of an Addams Family series that follows the adventures of Wednesday Addams. Wednesday broke records for Netflix with the most hours watched for an English language show in its first week and looks to be closing in on being the third show to cross a billion hours watched. It also skyrocketed the stardom of breakout actress Jenna Ortega, who seems to be everywhere now.
Despite Netflix’s genesis of being a movie service, this trend also shows an interesting shift in content success. After much hype and impressive limited theatrical preview numbers, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery opened with a lower-than-estimated debut as it becomes the sixth biggest opening of the streaming platform behind such titles as The Unforgivable, The Gray Man, The Adam Project, Don’t Look Up, and Red Notice.
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