Is Netflix About to Turn Into a Franchise Factory?

Netflix is famous for its “gourmet cheeseburger” approach to TV programming, and any good producer of cheeseburgers knows the natural next step is a franchise.

It’s been clear for a while now that Netflix is pursuing more franchise plays; before “Wednesday” Season 2 entered production, a spinoff was already in development, while 2022’s “The Gray Man” was explicitly intended to kick-start an “expanded universe.” Development is unsurprisingly also underway on both animated and live-action spinoffs of “Stranger Things.”

The streamer even acquired a smorgasbord of Roald Dahl IP back in 2021 with the intent of building “a universe across animated and live-action films and TV, publishing, games, immersive experiences, live theater, consumer products and more.”

But it’s only really become evident more recently that this strategy is paying off and that the streamer possesses truly franchiseable IP in its arsenal.

Near the top of the list is “Bridgerton,” the hit romantic drama that has been dominating streaming viewership charts since its third season premiere last month. The release of season 3 not only helped lift the show’s first two seasons back into Netflix’s global top 10, but it did the same for the spinoff/prequel series “Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story.”

“Queen Charlotte,” of course, was a blockbuster series in its own right; the spinoff was the third most watched series on Netflix last year by estimated views, with about 89.6 million, according to data from the streamer’s “What We Watched” engagement reports. It also, for a time, ranked among the streamer‘s most-watched TV seasons ever.

While this fell short of the original “Bridgerton” ratings (113.3 million and 93.8 million views for season 1 and 2, respectively, in their first three months of release), “Queen Charlotte” was the first solid proof that a spinoff from Netflix scripted IP could generate success on the same scale as the mothership. By way of contrast, “The Witcher” prequel series “Blood Origin” received fewer than 50 million global views between its Dec. 25, 2022, release and the end of 2023, per Netflix data.

Indeed, the recent jump in viewership of “Queen Charlotte” alongside that of prior “Bridgerton” seasons is further evidence that the spinoff successfully expanded the original series’ footprint. In the three weeks following the “Bridgerton” S3 premiere, “Queen Charlotte” generated nearly 9 million hours of viewing time in the U.S. alone, according to Luminate data.

But if the “Bridgerton”-verse has proved that a hit Netflix series can transfer eyeballs to a spinoff, this dynamic can work in reverse as well.

The streamer’s “What We Watched” report for the second half of 2023 also demonstrated that the reality competition series “Squid Game: The Challenge,” inspired by the smash-hit South Korean scripted drama, boosted the original show’s viewership by 34% versus the first half of the year.

Globally, “Squid Game” jumped from 87.2 million hours watched, or 10.5 million views, in the January-June period to 117 million hours, or 14.1 million views, from July to December. Furthermore, Luminate’s week-by-week data shows the spinoff’s impact on U.S. viewership in greater detail: The peak weekly ratings for “Squid Game” following the premiere of “The Challenge” were up more than 900% from its average viewership in the month prior.

The spinoff’s effect also had a significant tail; as late as a month following the finale of “The Challenge,” weekly “Squid Game” viewership in the U.S. remained elevated from before the competition series’ premiere.

The upshot here is that a popular spinoff can translate into significantly heightened viewership for the original series as well, particularly in the Netflix ecosystem, where that original series is always just a few clicks away.

There are, of course, larger implications here. Given the success of these IP plays over the past year, it’s reasonable to assume Netflix’s franchise ambitions are expanding — and, indeed, there’s evidence to support that assumption.

Just last week, the streamer officially announced a “Peaky Blinders” movie with series star (and newly minted Oscar winner) Cillian Murphy returning. The creators behind “League of Legends” animated series “Arcane” recently said the series is just “the first of many stories” to come. And let’s not forget those “Stranger Things” spinoffs still on the way, with more seeming likely as the monstrously successful series prepares to wrap up its run.

Such projects are certainly reflective of the market at large in the post-peak TV era. With content priorities shifting, the industry can expect much fewer of the creatively risky, close-ended projects that defined peak TV (especially at the budget levels to which the business grew accustomed).

Netflix may still release such projects — “Baby Reindeer,” anyone? — but it’s clear at this point where the streamer’s main priorities now lie.