5 Interesting Facts About Dark, the German Netflix Original

News and Opinion / 28th January 2021

1) Dark was Germany’s first Netflix Original

On the 1st of December 2017, Netflix released its first German Netflix Original.  Pitched as a darker, more complex and more German version of Stranger Things, it’s no surprise that the show won over German viewers. Our exclusive research shows that almost 6 million German accounts  streamed at least one episode of Dark. However, the global success of the programme was unprecendented.

2) Dark is the most popular piece of German content on Netflix

Using our online SVOD Analytics tool, SoDA (Streaming On Demand Analytics) we were able to track the performance of Dark in 4 other major European territories: the UK, France, Spain and Italy. In these countries, Dark was watched by almost half of all Netflix accounts. In fact, between January 2017 and September 2020, Money Heist was the only piece of non-English language content that outperformed Dark. The German sci-fi/thriller/horror show came in at number 8 in the top ten most popular pieces of content across UKFIGS. Dark has been viewed by more Europeans than  The Witcher and 6 Underground!

3) Dark paved the way for further German hits on Netflix

Since the release of Dark, other German shows have excelled on the platform, most notably, Unorthodox, and How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast). These shows have performed phenomenally well, inside and outside of Germany.  There is no surprise that this coincides with the rise in popularity in all non-English language content, as discussed in our previous blog and in a recent Time article.

4) Out of all the series on Netflix, Dark was voted to have the 9th best soundtrack!

Analysts at OnBuy.com compared the success of Netflix Original soundtracks on the music streaming platform, Spotify. They calculated the average number of streams per song in order to find out which was the most popular. Stranger Things took the crown with their playlist, featuring artists such as The Clash, Madonna and The Who. This soundtrack achieved  a staggering average of over 87 million streams per song. Dark came in ninth place, with its most popular soundtrack playlist being followed by 101,071 Spotify users. The average streams per song for this sountrack was 13,251,466. The Dark soundtrack is more popular than the soundtrack for the critically-acclaimed limited series, The Queen’s Gambit, which managed an impressive average of 11,362,222 streams per song.

5) Dark has a cult fan following and they’re obsessed with geneology

Due to the complex nature of the show, many viewers were left with questions about how characters related to one another. Almost everyone in the town of Winden is connected somehow, through past, present, and future. In an attempt to give people a better understanding, super fans took to Fandom.com. Some of them even developed their own Dark ‘family trees’ showing how the characters from the 4 main families are connected. Above we’ve linked to an interactive one that allows you to omit spoilers by selecting the season you’re currently watching. It’s so impressive we could’ve written a whole blog post about the Dark Fandom geneology trees!

If you were a fan of the Dark series, you will be pleased to hear that the producers are working with Netflix again on a new mind-bending series, set for release in February 2021. Tribes of Europa has been described as a dystopian sci-fi thriller. Set in 2074, the plot revolves around ‘three siblings set out to change the fate of Europe after a global catastrophe causes Europe to fracture into dystopian warring tribal micro-states who vie for dominance over the other states’. If you, like us, loved Dark this is definitely one to keep an eye out for!