The worldwide phenomenon that is the Netflix original Korean series Squid Game, is on its way to becoming Netflix’s biggest-ever TV show, and according to a leaked report, it will earn Netflix a well full of money.
Netflix paid $21.4 million for the series, which premiered on the streaming giant four weeks ago with all of its nine episodes, and now the company estimates that Squid Game is going earn them 40 times of what it took to buy the series and that is $891 million. This Sunday evening Bloomberg, reported the news, citing confidential internal data that was provided to the Netflix by an employee of the streaming giant who leaked the confidential documents. Netflix has declined to comment on the report by the outlet and a lawyer working for Netflix has also said that reporting on confidential data in the documents is “inappropriate” for Bloomberg.
The proprietary metric is a measure of the title’s economic contribution to Netflix based on the views from subscribers. Squid Game premiered on Netflix on September 17 and in 23 days since its release 132 million subscribers have watched at least two minutes of the show, according to the report provided by Bloomberg. Approximately 89% of those viewers watched 75 minutes and 66% of them binge-watched the entire series in the first 23 days. Overall Netflix subscribers have watched the Korean series for more than 1.4 billion hours.
Squid Game (Synopsis): Hundreds of cash-strapped players accept a strange invitation to compete in children’s games. Inside, a tempting prize awaits — with deadly high stakes.
While talking to Variety, the series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk said that he wanted to highlight the wealth gap in the modern world. Check out the quote below:
“I wanted to write a story that was an allegory or fable about modern capitalist society, something that depicts an extreme competition, somewhat like the extreme competition of life.”