EXCLUSIVE: Stranger Things 5 is off to a monstrous start with the biggest premiere week ever for an English-language series on Netflix.
The first four episodes, which debuted on November 26, catapulted the latest season of the Duffer Brothers‘ supernatural drama to No. 1 on the weekly TV rankings with 59.6M global views. That bests the premiere-week record previously held by Wednesday Season 1, which accumulated roughly 56M views in its first four days. The second season of Squid Game still holds the all-time premiere-week record with 68M views.
It is worth noting that Stranger Things 5 debuted on Wednesday night (5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET), as opposed to Thursday at midnight eastern as with the other shows mentioned above, so it did have a few more hours to rack up views, though not enough to likely make a huge difference.
In addition to the latest season, all four previous seasons of Stranger Things entered the weekly Top 10, which is a first for Netflix. The first season was at No. 3 (8.9 million views), Season 4 at No. 5 (6.1 million views), Season 2 at No. 6 (5.6 million views), and Season 3 at No. 8 (4.6 million views). The streamer says that, since Season 1 debuted in 2016, Stranger Things has tallied 1.2B combined views.
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“We are completely overwhelmed by the fan response to this season. It means the world to us, and we know it means just as much to the thousands of cast and crew who poured their blood, sweat, and tears into bringing this story to life,” Matt and Ross Duffer said in a statement to Deadline. “We’d like to give a special shout-out to all the fans who kept the flame alive during the long lead-up to release — through word of mouth, on social media, in fan art, rewatches, and in the thousands of unforgettable moments we and the cast have shared with you around the world. Your passion didn’t just inspire us; it helped bring a new generation of fans into the world of Stranger Things.”
Will Stranger Things 5 Make the Most Popular List?
This debut performance primes Stranger Things 5 to easily make it onto Netflix’s all time most popular list. The Night Agent and Fool Me Once are currently tied with 98.2M views in ninth and tenth place, respectively.
Since there are four new episodes on the way at the end of the month, it seems safe to say that Stranger Things 5 will blow right past these — and likely the entire bottom half of the Top 10 as it currently stands. Wednesday still holds onto first place with 252M views in its 91-day premiere window.
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Whether the final season of Stranger Things has enough juice to finally take that title after three years remains to be seen, though it is entirely possible. For split releases, the 91-day premiere window resets with the release of each volume, meaning that the series has until 91 days post-finale to solidify its place on the all-time rankings.
The response to Stranger Things 5 is all the more impressive given its been more than three years since any new episodes of the show were released. A lengthy hiatus such as that generally results in waning audience interest. The fact that, in this case, it did not pretty firmly cements the series’ cultural cache.
But, this type of success doesn’t generally happen on its own — and it didn’t here, either.
Capitalizing on 10 Years of Cultural Impact
Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that the show has managed such feats, given that audiences likely saw Stranger Things everywhere they looked over the past several weeks in the lead-up to the Season 5 premiere.
Netflix is literally taking the show on a world tour, hosting fan events in 28 cities and 21 countries across the globe. Things kicked off in Italy at Lucca ComicCon on October 31.
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On November 23, just ahead of the release, Netflix held a “One Last Ride” cycling event with CicLAvia with over 50,000 fans participating in a bike ride on Melrose Avenue. Stranger Things also had a presence at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade via a float boasting a Demogorgon that appeared to have just broken free of its cell at Hawkins lab.
The celebrations aren’t over, either. The fan events will continue throughout December, culminating in theatrical screenings of the finale on 500 screens across the U.S. and Canada on December 31 and January 1.
Netflix also went all out on its brand partnerships for Stranger Things 5, cultivating the series’ biggest consumer product and retail push ever.
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From Gatorade’s “No Ordinary Athlete” lemon lime Gatorade in glass bottles campaign to an Indiana Fever Jersey collab and Eggo strawberry waffles, it’s almost like the gates to the Upside Down have been flung wide open with promotional material flooding television screens, grocery store aisles, clothing racks, and more.
Target, Doritos, LEGO, Walmart, Chips Ahoy, Lite Brite, Bath & Body Works, Pandora, and even Discover all have been advertising with Stranger Things (and that, honestly, barely scratches the surface). Walmart’s exclusive apparel collaboration culminated with a two-day pop-up in New York City, reimagining the WSQK radio station from Season 5. In Paris, Galeries Lafayette is also hosting a themed pop-up experience featuring a Hawkins-set Christmas market. Netflix also has its own stores in New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, Las Vegas, Miami and Paris as well as the Netflix Bites restaurant in Las Vegas to promote the series’ final season.
While, as we mentioned, the flagship series has been on a three-year hiatus, audiences haven’t been completely deprived of new Stranger Things. At the end of 2023, Stranger Things: The First Shadow opened on London’s West End, chronicling the arrival of Henry Creel in 1959 Hawkins. The stage play’s success led it to recently open on Broadway, becoming the most Tony award-winning play of the season.
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Another original off-screen storyline can be found in Stranger Things: The Experience, part escape room and part 3D ride that was developed with the Duffers and has traveled the world.
Upcoming, Netflix will continue telling stories inside Hawkins, Indiana, with the animated series Stranger Things: Tales From ’85. There will also be another immersive experience opening in Dallas called Stranger Things: Escape the Dark.
Over the years, in addition to its widespread cultural impact, Stranger Things has also made some notable economic contributions throughout nearly a decade of filming across the United States. California and Georgia, where the show is filmed, experienced the greatest impact, particularly the latter, where more than 2,000 vendors were hired to support the series across five seasons. According to Netflix, the series generated over $650M in GDP to Georgia’s economy. In California, that number was more than $500M.
In all, Stranger Things created 8,000 production-related jobs in five seasons, per Netflix. The streamer also says that the production employed more than 3,800 vendors headquartered in nearly every state.
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