Squid Game is Netflix most watched anything with 111 million viewers.
The budget was 21 million.
Comparing that
Stranger Things season 3
67 million viewers
120 million dollar budget
15 million an episode
Queens Gambit
62 million viewers
40 million dollar budget
5.7 million an episode
The Witcher
76 million views
80 million dollar budget
10 million an episode
Squid Game on a budget of 2.3 million per episode managed to surpass shows and movies which get 2-5x the budget.
Doing this while having a show that doesn’t have a word of English unless from a poor dubbing.
In fact, it didn’t have a lot of things.
Filmed in South Korea.
No named actors.
The creator sold his laptop to pay rent while writing the script.
The Irishman cost 160 million to make.
The 30 day view count was never released, but it only got 26 million viewers on opening week and estimated view count for 30 days was about 50 million.
That movie had…
Martin Scorcese directing
Robert Deniro and an A list cast.
Netflix did a marketing campaign and limited theater release to get Oscar notations.
Why this all matters.
Disney, HBO Max, Paramout Plus and many others all have better war chests of content versus Netflix, which doesn’t have the same brandable content.
Netflix, which every month loses content might have an edge in focusing on lower budget projects with a stronger international appeal. A better approach over dumpling 100-200 million into shows or movies with A list cast that don’t get that much attention.
Still haven’t watched the show, but really cool to see this thing blow up.