It would be an understatement to call Squid Game a phenomenon, with the Korean series dominating the cultural conversation ever since it landed on Netflix back on September 17, where it went on to become the platform’s most-watched original series ever.
Predicting what film and television titles are in with a shot at capturing the zeitgeist is tricky at the best of times, but the world simply couldn’t stop talking about Hwang Dong-hyuk’s socially conscious, economically prescient and gruesomely violent satirical thriller.
Getting into the streamer’s Top 10 most-watched list isn’t all that difficult when the majority of buzzworthy in-house exclusives accomplish the feat, but staying there is a whole lot trickier. All winning streaks must come to an end eventually, though, but it’s incredible to think that it’s taken Squid Game over nine weeks to disappear from the ranking of the ten biggest hits on Netflix.
While the project still numbers among the ten most-watched TV shows, it’s out of the overall Top 10 for the first time ever, but it’s already been replaced by another Korean effort. Yeon Sang-ho’s Hellbound is Netflix’s latest instant smash hit, with the effects-heavy fantasy being buoyed by what analysts have dubbed ‘the Squid Game effect’, and it’s fortunate that another broad genre show from the same country has come along to pick up the slack at exactly the right moment.