Dahmer Netflix Series Hits A Record Only Three Other Shows Have Reached
Ryan Murphy‘s newest venture into the mind of serial killers, Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, debuted on Netflix on September 21, 2022 and quickly became a popular true crime series for the modern age. The streamer is currently doing very well in the genre, with Murphy’s The Watcher starring Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale recently announcing a second season renewal. Now, Collider reports that Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story has hit a record of surpassing 1 billion hours viewed by Netflix users, a record held by only three other television shows.
The record milestone achieved by Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story for Netflix is for the number of hours viewed within a 60-day period, marking a stellar debut for a series that joins the likes of Squid Game and the fourth season of Stranger Things in the record books. The Monster concept was recently announced as becoming a franchise, where Ryan Murphy and his team will depict stories of other similar serial killers as part of Murphy’s overall deal with the subscription streaming service. By making Monster and The Watcher into anthology shows, Murphy is remaking Netflix’s image a bit by using some of the same techniques he’s employed on FX with hit series like American Horror Story and American Crime Story.
Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story premiered on Netflix and became an instant phenomenon amongst true crime viewers, despite the show’s depiction of gruesome killings and cannibalistic mutilations by serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Evan Peters plays the pivotal starring role, employing a Midwestern accent and cropped hair to look and sound like the real person on which his character is based on. Rounding out the cast of the ten-episode series is Academy Award-nominated actor Richard Jenkins, 1980s film icon Molly Ringwald, Niecy Nash, and The Waltons star Michael Learned.
From the get-go, Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story has been a controversial choice for Netflix to produce, as many of the victims’ families have come out in protest of the show’s depiction of Jeffrey Dahmer’s crimes. Many of these families have been upset with Ryan Murphy and Netflix directly, as the producers of the hit series did not reach out to the families to discuss portraying their sons and family members on the television show. Despite the controversy, the series has been careful about using transcripts of the court trial to reflect within the show’s dialogue towards the end of the season.
While still controversial, Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story has clearly been a success for Netflix as it attempts to find more subscribers to join the platform in the ever-present streaming wars. Netflix is next looking at its slate of movies to bolster subscriptions, with Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery coming to the platform later this month. The standalone sequel to 2019’s Knives Out will star Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc, the world’s greatest detective, as he solves a murder on a remote island getaway with Dave Bautista, Janelle Monáe, Kate Hudson, Edward Norton, and Kathryn Hahn.
