streaming services
Netflix record start for “Wednesday”
Actress Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams in the Netflix fantasy series Wednesday. photo
© Vlad Cioplea/Netflix/dpa
“Wednesday” runs for less than a week on Netflix – and is already breaking records. This means that the fantasy series could compete with the South Korean thriller production “Squid Game”.
According to Netflix, in just five days more than 50 million households watched the new fantasy series “Wednesday” with Jenna Ortega (20) in the role of the Addams Family daughter of the same name. “The series now holds the record for hours counted in a week for an English-language TV series on Netflix,” the streaming service said on Tuesday.
According to this, the eight-part series published last Wednesday (November 23rd) was streamed for around 341.2 million hours by Sunday (November 27th). The series ended up in the weekly top ten in the “TV (English)” category (English-language series) far ahead of Netflix productions such as the German mystery series “1899” (87.9 million hours) and the 5th season of the British series “The Crown” (42.4 million between November 21 and 27).
The mystery comedy series Wednesday, produced by Netflix and Tim Burton, explores the chilling life of the Addams Family’s daughter. The main character is accompanied by a living severed hand, which is itself a character (called “Thing”; in German “Eiskaltes Händchen”).
More successful than “Squid Game”?
To classify: The most successful Netflix series to date, the South Korean thriller series “Squid Game”, once had a good 1.65 billion hours in its first 28 days (the streaming service does not publish other figures) in September/October 2021. The hype only started in the second week. On “Wednesday” a fifth of the hours were now counted in a sixth of the time.
Netflix calculated the number of 50 million “Wednesday” households by dividing the number of hours streamed by the length of the series (6.8 hours). “Wednesday” also made the top 10 series in 93 countries. The last time this happened was the fourth season of “Stranger Things” at the end of May/beginning of June. The series clocked up 286.8 million hours in its first three days.
With around 223 million user accounts, Netflix calls itself “the largest streaming entertainment service in the world”.