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Since getting into the original content game, Netflix has managed to do the thing that every Hollywood studio wants to create: a new franchise. It’s why Disney bought Marvel and Lucasfilm; it’s what Warner Bros. pulled off when it bought New Line Cinema, and Netflix has its own valuable IP alongside them. No one could have predicted when Stranger Things and Squid Game premiered on the streamer that they would become billion-dollar hits, inspiring spinoff shows, Broadway plays, video games, and countless merch. There’s another one in the wings, though, but you’d never know it looking at the US Netflix charts.
The Top 10 on Netflix in the United States has the new season of The Four Seasons, plus new shows Nemesis and The Boroughs, plus a tribute to Eddie Murphy. Absent from the entire list, though, is the #1 non-English language show on the global platform, Berlin and the Lady with an Ermine. What’s so surprising about this is that this marks the second season of a spinoff set within one of Netflix’s other biggest franchises, Money Heist. The data confirms that Berlin is a certified hit, just not in America.
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Berlin Proves Netflix’s Money Heist Is a Global Hit
The Top 10 charts for Netflix available on FlixPatrol reveal that for the past few days Berlin and the Lady with an Ermine, the name for Season 2 of Money Heist‘s Berlin spinoff series, has officially been the top show on the entire platform for a few days. Only today has it been taken over by another show, with the latest season of The Four Seasons just barely edging out the show (by a margin of two points on their charts). What’s so impressive about Berlin’s streaming success is that even though the series is #1 in 28 countries across South America, Africa, and the Middle East, but not once since it debuted has it even entered the Top 10 in the United States.
According to Netflix’s own analytics, Berlin and the Lady with an Ermine brought in 6.2 million views in its first week of release, leaping to 10.3 million in week 2, and then back down to 4.7 million views in week 3, for a total of 21.2 million views in less than a month. In that same time, both The Boroughs and Nemesis topped the charts stateside with viewership that was comparable to Berlin‘s second batch of episodes.
So what’s holding back something that is clearly a major tentpole for Netflix? Ever since Money Heist made its way to Netflix after its second batch of episodes, the three seasons that Netflix produced have been major global hits. As of this writing, Money Heist: Part 4 is the highest-rated of them all, and the #4 TV show of all-time on Netflix’s non-English language charts. The truth may have something to do with how large franchises have been flailing across the 2020s, no matter how big or small.
To zoom out and provide an example, ever since Marvel Studios began releasing shows on Disney+ in addition to feature films, there’s been a recurring complaint by some that watching anything new requires the “homework” of watching all these other projects to even “understand it.” The truth is that this is seldom true in any meaningful way, but the lie has become an accepted truth.
Even though US audiences clearly got caught up in the hype of Money Heist‘s final season, they haven’t kept up with it in the time since. After the last episode of the flagship series offered a proper conclusion for its characters, Money Heist found itself in a place where the popularity of the show necessitated more stories, but which ones would it tell? A Korean spinoff premiered in 2022, followed by the prequel about Pedro Alonso’s “Berlin” in 2023, and though they’ve both done well internationally, the US audience appears to have moved on. The good news for Netflix, at least, is that every other country appears to be on board, proving that a hit show on the streamer can find an audience even if its biggest pool of subscribers totally ignore it.
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