After breaking all Netflix records, Stranger Things never seems to end

Season four of Stranger Things has broken almost all ratings records for Netflix, and the show appears to be the most popular of all the streaming giant’s original creations.

No fewer than 1.15 billion hours of viewing have been logged for Stranger Things 4, according to data provided by Netflix, officially. If we look at just the latest season, it’s the most popular series Netflix has produced since Squid Game. At the same time, it’s the most popular English-language series on the platform. The first 7 episodes of the most recent season enjoyed 930.32 million viewing hours in the first 28 days of its debut, while episodes 8 and 9 reflected another 221 million viewing hours in a single week between June 27 and July 3.

Given that Squid Game has logged 1.65 billion viewing hours in its first 28 days of release, it’s not out of the question that Stranger Things 4 will enjoy the same or even exceed those numbers after the same time period.

What’s next for Stranger Things, how it will continue

Not even well into the release of Stranger Things season 4, the folks at Netflix have been surprisingly transparent about the future of the franchise. For one thing, the story created by the Duffer brothers will end with season five, which hits the platform next year. After that, however, Netflix has confirmed that there will be a Stranger Things drama and another spin-off series, likely built around one of the main characters. The drama will fall to Emmy and Tony Award winner Stephen Daldry, best known for his involvement with The Crown and Billy Elliot.

As part of the partnership between Netflix and the Duffer brothers, Matt and Ross, however, there are a few more exciting plans via the pair’s production studio, Upside Down Pictures. Apparently, the Hilary Leavitt-led studio, producer of Ozark and Orphan Black, will be in charge of “creating the kind of stories that inspired the Duffers brothers when they were growing up, stories that take place at the wonderful intersection where the ordinary meets the extraordinary, where great spectacle coexists with intimate character storytelling, where heart wins out over cynicism,” the folks at Netflix insist in a recent press release.