Spooky in Love: Netflix Top 10 in 42 Countries — What the 8th-to-5th Climb Means

Correction (2026-09-10): The scope, comparisons and interpretation of key figures have been reviewed and corrected below. The original publication date is retained.

tvN's Spooky in Love entered Netflix's non-English chart quietly at No. 8, then reached the Top 10 in 42 countries within three weeks. This is a data-led read of why that curve rose slowly — and why slow is not the same as weak.

What the show is

Spooky in Love is a tvN weekend drama that premiered on 18 July 2026, airing Saturdays and Sundays at 9:10 p.m. in twelve episodes, with its finale set for 23 August. It is written by Choi Jung-mi, directed by Lee Min-soo and produced by CJ ENM Studios, starring Park Eun-bin, Yang Se-jong and Ong Seong-wu. Episodes stream worldwide on Netflix as they air in Korea.

It is a remake of the 2011 film of the same name (directed by Hwang In-ho, starring Son Ye-jin and Lee Min-ki), which drew three million admissions in Korean cinemas. The series keeps the core premise - a woman who sees ghosts, a man terrified of them - but rebuilds the characters' jobs and standing: the street magician and horror-show staffer of the film become a ghost-seeing heiress and a prosecutor who is scared of the dark. Stretching a two-hour film into twelve episodes matters later in this analysis.

The Netflix numbers, read properly

By Netflix's own weekly count, the start was modest. In its first measured week (13-19 July) the show placed 8th among non-English TV titles with 1.7 million views and Top 10 placements in 17 countries. Views is Netflix's official metric, calculated by dividing total hours viewed by a title's runtime. The following week it rose three places to 5th, and Korean outlets report that it has since held the Top 10 for three consecutive weeks, charting in 42 countries including Korea, Japan, Brazil and India. Rising after the premiere week is a rare shape.

On FlixPatrol, a third-party daily tracker, the series reached No. 2 worldwide among Netflix TV titles on 21 July and appeared in the Top 10 of 77 countries and territories that day, including eight where it ranked first: Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, El Salvador and Venezuela. Daily third-party counts use a different methodology from Netflix's official weekly chart, so the two sets of figures should not be treated as equivalent.

Domestic numbers rose more plainly. Ratings opened at 3.0% for the first episode and reached a series high of 6.2% by episode 8, while the show held No. 1 in its time slot among cable and general-programming channels for eight straight episodes.

One caution about that chart. Every figure above is a Nielsen Korea nationwide paid-platform household average. For the same episode, capital-area or peak-minute numbers are usually reported higher - episode 5, for instance, averaged 5.5% nationwide while peaking at 6.4% in the capital area - and mixing bases in one line overstates the climb. This chart uses same-basis averages only.

Buzz metrics track high as well. In Good Data Corporation's FUNdex - a private index of online response to broadcast content - the series ranked second in TV drama buzz for three consecutive weeks, with Park Eun-bin second and Yang Se-jong third among cast members. Being a private aggregate, it should not be read as equivalent to ratings or Netflix rankings.

Different titles in one week: conditions for comparison

Five Korean series sat in Netflix's non-English Top 10 that same week. Lined up side by side, Spooky in Love's 1.7 million views looks meagre.

Agent Kim is an SBS broadcast drama; the earlier description as an all-at-once original was incorrect. Spooky in Love’s first reporting window included only two days, so time available differs even within the same chart week.

Latin America reacted before Korea did

The geography is the interesting part. All eight countries where the daily tracker showed it at No. 1 were in Latin America and the Caribbean, while Asian traction came from Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia. In other words, while domestic ratings were still moving in the 4% range, the show was already topping charts on the other side of the world.

That gap suggests two things. First, genre travels. Occult plus romance requires almost no local context; fear and attraction survive subtitles far better than legal, political or period-specific material, which is why those genres split sharply by market. Second, timing: a show that satisfies both horror and romance demand at once is well placed in a July-August schedule.

The case also complicates the assumption that domestic buzz leads global performance. Here the overseas ranking moved earlier, and more steeply, than the ratings at home.

Park Eun-bin's second global hit - with one comparison to avoid

Park Eun-bin already held the top of Netflix's non-English chart for several weeks in 2022 with Extraordinary Attorney Woo, which was reported at 77.43 million viewing hours in the third week of August that year. It is tempting to set that number beside today's 1.7 million or 8.2 million, but the two cannot be compared. Netflix switched its headline metric from hours viewed to views in 2023; the units are simply different.

What can be compared is shape. Attorney Woo entered high, reached No. 1 and stayed there for weeks. Spooky in Love entered low and climbed. Reaching 42 countries is a real result, but it is a different kind of success and worth labelling as such.

From a production standpoint, the series is also a case of IP reuse. Expanding a 2011 film into twelve episodes let the writers change the leads' class and profession and build fresh conflict, producing a story with no entry barrier for viewers who have never seen the original. Turning older film IP into series is an increasingly common Korean strategy, and these numbers add one more data point in its favour.

Four episodes left: what to watch

Four episodes remain before the 23 August finale. Instead of predictions, three checkable markers.

• Whether domestic ratings cross 7% - the series high is currently 6.2%. Korean dramas typically peak in their finale week, which makes 7% a reasonable line to watch.
• A views rebound in the finale week - weekly dramas often post their highest views once the full run is available. A return to the non-English top five then would confirm the slow-curve reading.
• Whether the Latin American No. 1s hold - whether the early surge lasts into the back half is what separates a spike from a genuine global run.

No platform or studio has announced a renewal or follow-up, so we will not speculate on one. But if the ranking rises again in the finale week, it adds another case showing that a twice-weekly broadcast drama can succeed on a global chart by growing late rather than landing big. That is the kind of data that changes how the chart itself should be read.

This is nuloq's own analysis based on the public Netflix charts, viewing data, reporting, and official sources listed under Sources, written with the help of AI. It is an interpretation of public data for information and criticism only - not a definitive judgment of any title, cast, creator, or platform - and ranking and viewing figures reflect the time of writing. We correct the text if errors are found.