‘The Queen’s Gambit’ Scores as Netflix’s Most-Watched Scripted Limited Series to Date

“The Queen’s Gambit” set the record as the most-viewed scripted limited series to date on Netflix — with 62 million member accounts tuning in to the show in the first 28 days, according to the company.

There’s a caveat, though: The way Netflix reports viewing is based on the number of viewers who have watched at least 2 minutes of a piece of content. And the streamer cherry-picks which originals it decides to tout with the proprietary metric.

Netflix boasted about the success of “The Queen’s Gambit,” saying that the show made the Top 10 in 92 countries and ranked No. 1 in 63 countries, including the U.K., Argentina, Israel and South Africa.

“Three years ago when Scott Frank (‘Godless’) first approached us about adapting ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ — Walter Tevis’ 1983 book about a young chess prodigy — we felt it was a compelling tale,” Netflix VP of original series Peter Friedlander wrote in a blog post. “However, I don’t think any of us could have predicted that ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ — and the extraordinary Anya Taylor-Joy — would become the global phenomena they are today, or our biggest limited scripted series ever.”

“The Queen’s Gambit” premiered Oct. 23 on Netflix worldwide. The seven-episode limited series stars Anya Taylor-Joy, Marielle Heller, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Moses Ingram, Harry Melling and Bill Camp.

Scott Frank serves as co-creator, executive producer, writer, director and showrunner. “The Queen’s Gambit” is executive produced by William Horberg (“The Talented Mr. Ripley”) and Allan Scott (“Don’t Look Now”), who is also a co-creator of the series.

More to come