The Queen’s Gambit is now Netflix’s most popular scripted limited series

Netflix drama The Queen’s Gambit has become the streamer’s most popular limited series to date, with over 60 million households giving it a look.

The Queen’s Gambit, the Netflix series which chronicles the emotional tale of a young orphan girl’s rise to become a world chess champion, has proven surprisingly popular for the streaming service. So popular, in fact, that it’s set a record.

The Anya Taylor-Joy fronted series has rapidly become Netflix’s most popular limited series to date. According to the streamer, a record-setting 62 million households watched The Queen’s Gambit in its first 28 days of release. It has made the Top 10 in 92 countries and ranked No. 1 in 63 of them.

Whew.  Netflix is notoriously tight-lipped about its internal metrics – it doesn’t often release numbers related to the performance of specific series. So when they do, you know it’s a big deal. (And it’s usually good news.)

Which, truly, could not happen to a more deserving show. The Queen’s Gambit is gorgeously put together in almost every way, from its stunning central performance to its feminist story and period setting.

In fact, the show is so popular that it’s driven the eponymous novel on which the series is based to The New York Times bestseller list, 37 years after its publication. And, according to the director of marketing at Goliath Games, sales of chess sets have skyrocketed in the wake of the series’s release.

I mean, there are certainly worse things we could all be spending our COVID-enforced stay at home time doing than learning to play chess, right?

The only real downer for Netflix here is that The Queen’s Gambit is pretty clearly a limited series and not the sort of show they can immediately greenlight a sequel to. However, it does light a path for the sorts of content the streamer should consider making in the future, in the hopes that lightning just might strike twice.

(I really like period dramas and want more of them – can you tell?)

If you’re one of the people who still need to give this series a try – just check your Netflix homepage. It’s probably still in the Top 10 today!

What did you think of The Queen’s Gambit? Sound off in the comments.