Netflix Thriller Below Claims No 1 Spot on Streaming Charts

For decades, Jaws has had an impact on popular culture unlike any other movie. Steven Spielberg’s 1975 classic helped revolutionize the very concept of a blockbuster movie while leaving generations of viewers nervous to enter waters that might be infested with sharks. Decades later, a new Netflix series is quickly finding its audience and possibly creating a new fear around bodies of water.

Below, a new live-action supernatural thriller series, made its debut on Netflix on Thursday, October 8th. In just one day on the streamer, the series became a runaway hit, topping the charts of the most-streamed television shows on the platform above shows like East of Eden, Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, and the Netflix debut of Disney+’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Netflix updates its streaming charts on a weekly basis, so it will take a few days for Below‘s actual streaming performance to be made public, but the show is expected to top the official charts as well.

In Below, when a mysterious sea creature starts terrorizing a coastal town, a fisherman must fight to protect his family and his community’s vanishing way of life. The six-episode series is created by Jesse McKeown, whose body of work includes episodes of The Sinner and The Umbrella Academy.

The ensemble cast of Below includes Josh Hartnett (Verity) as Calvin Penney, Mackenzie Davis (Halt and Catch Fire) as Dr. Fonda Howander, Charlie Heaton (Stranger Things) as Wade Penny, Ruby Stokes (Bridgerton) as Mary Penny, Kaleb Horn (Revival) as Noah Townsend, Rohan Campbell (Halloween Ends) as Jay Penney, Willow Kean (Hudson & Rex) as Ruth Penney, Mary Walsh (Resident Alien) as Mayor Linda Best, and Natasha Henstridge (Species) as Jan Hicks. Hartnett also serves as an executive producer on the series.

Despite Below‘s early streaming success, a second season of the show might not immediately be in the cards. The project is billed as a miniseries, with McKeown recently explaining that:

“Well, I mean, this is a limited series. So no, I just wanted to tell a complete story and wanted it to feel really satisfying and didn’t want to leave too many things angling, but I also don’t like a neat ending, and I don’t think [executive producer] Jessica Rhoades does either.”

Source: Polygon