Stranger Things 4 Beats Bridgerton Season 2 to Deliver Netflix's Biggest Opening Weekend

Stranger Things 4 has beaten Bridgerton season 2 by nearly 50 percent to deliver the biggest ever opening weekend numbers for an English-language Netflix series. The sci-fi horror series was viewed for 287 million hours between May 23 and May 30, according to the platform's internal measurement. The thing to note here is that Stranger Things season 4 was available for only three days in this span as its first seven episodes, referred to as Stranger Things 4 Volume 1, premiered on May 27.

The penultimate season of Stranger Things might be able to beat Bridgerton season 2 in the long run to emerge as the most-viewed English-language series on Netflix. The Regency-era drama recorded 656.26 million hours of viewing across the globe in its first 28 days. Stranger Things season 4 has already covered 44 percent of that tally in just three days. (The final two episodes of Stranger Things 4, which have a combined runtime of nearly four hours, are set to release July 1.)

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That said, Stranger Things season 4 may not be able to beat the Korean-language survival thriller Squid Game, which holds the record for most-watched Netflix series as it clocked 1.65 billion hours of viewing over its first 28 days. The fifth part of the Spanish-language crime drama Money Heist (792.23 million hours) too is a few slots ahead of Bridgerton season 2.

It would, either way, be safe to say that the hype surrounding Stranger Things season 4 has taken the franchise to new heights. The first three seasons of the series had a combined 84.55 million hours of viewing time between May 21 and May 27, the week leading up to the latest instalment's release. Kate Bush's 1985 song ‘Running Up That Hill', which is used in the season, has made it to the top position on Apple's iTunes (in the US) and the second slot on Spotify's US chart since the premiere.

Stranger Things 4 Volume 1 is streaming on Netflix.