Netflix House is a fascinating and ambitious entertainment experiment

“You’ve invited us into your home, and now, we’re welcoming you into ours.”

That’s the guiding sentiment behind Netflix House, a brand-new entertainment venue centred entirely around many of the streaming giant’s most popular titles, including Stranger Things, Squid Game, One Piece and Wednesday. Earlier this week, I got to attend the grand opening of the first-ever Netflix House in Philadelphia, and I’ve come away rather impressed by the ambitious scope of it all.

First and foremost: it’s massive. Located within Philly’s King of Prussia mall, the fourth-largest shopping centre in the U.S., Netflix House is a two-storey, 100,000 sq. ft containing all kinds of live entertainment options. On the first floor, there’s everything from an expansive One Piece escape room and Emily in Paris flower pop-up to a miniature Wednesday: Eve of the Outcasts experience featuring a fully interactive festival that includes Nevermore Academ, tons of carnival games and the 229-seat Tudum theatre that will be used for fan screenings of Netflix titles like KPop Demon Hunters. 

Some of the decorations you can expect on the walls and ceilings of Netflix House.

The second floor, meanwhile, is equally packed. If you’re hungry, there’s Netflix Bites, an eatery featuring food and drinks based on a wide array of Netflix titles, from the more obvious (Scoops Ahoy ice cream from Stranger Things) to the more unexpected (homemade chips with an onion dip inspired by Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery). Also on the top floor is a massive store featuring merch from various Netflix titles (with roughly 70 per cent of the products being exclusive to the Philadelphia venue), a nine-hole mini golf experience featuring courses inspired by the likes of Stranger Things, One Piece, Is It Cake? and WWE, and VR experiences based on Stranger Things, Squid Game and Rebel Moon.

“We’ve done a number of fan activations for shows and films when we launch, but those are usually a day, a weekend — they’re pretty ephemeral,” says Marian Lee, Netflix CMO, of the inspiration for Netflix House during a roundtable interview.

She points to a Stranger Things drive-thru experience that Netflix ran in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic as a key inspiration behind Netflix House. “The amount of people that lined up to participate in something that was part of a shared community around Stranger Things was so big, and they couldn’t even get out of their cars. So they felt, at that point, that they were on to something.”

There’s a lot of KPop Demon Hunters merch at Netflix House, among products based on other titles.

In the following years, Netflix has held over 40 different types of experiences in hundreds of cities around the world, including the Queen’s Ball for Bridgerton, Squid Game: The Experience and The Perfect Bite for Knives Out (which is still running in Toronto). All of this led to Netflix wanting to provide a more permanent physical experience for fans, and Lee says that, plus the King of Prussia mall’s massive real estate, led to the creation of this first-ever Netflix House. On top of that, a second location will open in Dallas next month, followed by a third on the Las Vegas Strip sometime in 2027, and all three locations will have different experiences. (Naturally, the company is waiting to see how these venues perform before potential international expansion.)

“I do think there is a bit of nostalgia for the younger generations who spent all their time digitally to want to have something physical, in real life, walking through something, touching something, a place to hang out,” says Lee of Netflix House. “So I think there’s a resurgence of people spending time in places like a mall or walking down the street and having a place to go. So for us, it’s about capitalizing on locations where we can deliver that real-life experience.”

After getting to tour Netflix House early in the day before returning for a more crowded evening reception, it’s easy to see what Lee means. Admittedly, many of the experiences skew more towards Netflix series than films, and because I’m someone who is much more into the latter, some of the main experiences at Netflix House that didn’t necessarily appeal to me, personally, like Wednesday and One Piece. (It’s also funny to consider that one of the VR experiences is based on Rebel Moon, a series that no one, outside of Zack Snyder’s cult-like fans, really likes.)

But the level of thought and attention to detail that’s gone into the entire Netflix House venue is simply undeniable. In the experiences themselves, that might mean seeing Monkey D. Luffy himself, Iñaki Godoy, popping up during the One Piece: Quest for the Devil Fruit escape room alongside recognizable locations like Alvida’s hideout and Arlong Park. Wednesday: Eve of the Outcasts, meanwhile, has both carnival games in an appropriately gothic festival setting that even I could appreciate, as well as a larger mystery involving Thing.

That’s to say nothing of the production design between all of these flagship experiences. As you enter Netflix House, you’ll see walls adorned with the likes of Wednesday‘s Thing, pirate ships from One Piece, KPop Demon Hunters‘ Huntrix trio, Young-hee from Squid Game and even Eddie Munson’s guitar from Stranger Things. After getting to the second floor, you’ll find Bridgerton-themed regal flower and chair arrangements in which you can take photos. In Netflix Bites, animated neon signs and other props with such fun references as “Toss a Sirloin to Your Witcher” (The Witcher), Squid Game‘s Red Guards on a steaming skewer and, for my personal favourite Netflix series, BoJack Horseman (“What is this, BREAKFAST?”).

Netflix House has also been designed with some degree of modularity in mind. After all, the company notes that it doesn’t always know when a new show might break out and become a massive global hit. A key example of this is KPop Demon Hunters, which premiered in June when Netflix House was already nearing completion. While the company naturally couldn’t suddenly add a bespoke experience on the scale of what it has for the likes of One Piece and Wednesday, decorations like paintings and merch placement in the store could certainly be added. Going forward, the streamer says it will make similar adjustments to Netflix House in response to the popularity of new titles.

The mini golf features the likes of Stranger Things, WWE, One Piece and Is It Cake?

Something else that’s very smart about Netflix House is how Netflix is actually selling it. Namely, the venue itself is free to enter, meaning that it can, in theory, draw everyone from the hardcore fans to people who are simply shopping at the mall. This means that even a cash-strapped teenaged Wednesday fan can at least enter, geek out over the splendour of it all and then leave. Or perhaps you’re a film buff like me and want to come just for a screening at Tudum Theatre, and Netflix is already promising a regular lineup of those that will sometimes include special guests and post-screening Q&As. And because Netflix House isn’t structured like, say, a Disney theme park, you can just pay à la carte for the premium experiences, whether that’s individual entertainment options or even just swinging by for some grub.

For instance, you could come in and just play minigolf, which starts at US$15 (about C$21) or play one of the roughly one-hour VR experiences, starting at US$25 (about C$35). Meanwhile, the longer and more involved multi-room Wednesday and One Piece experiences start at US$39 (about C$55). While those are certainly a bit pricier than you’d pay for traditional offerings of those kinds of experiences, it makes sense that you’d pay more to get those based on the properties, and given how massively popular they are, it would certainly be worth it for many fans.

“That’s why we made it free and open to the public to walk in — we wanted that accessibility,” says Lee. “We want to be an everyday destination. You can pop in, you can spend hours, you can spend 10 minutes. You can get a bite to eat or buy a present for a friend and not play anything. Or you can come back when you have more time. It is what you make of it and we wanted it to be a very custom, bespoke experience for everybody.”

Netflix Bites.

After spending a good part of the day at Netflix House, I’d have to agree with Lee. There’s a commendable variety of experiences on offer here, ensuring that you can come back multiple times and do something different each time. And given just how much new programming Netflix has on a regular basis, it’s exciting to think of how it might evolve with the next KPop Demon Hunters-esque hit.

If there’s anything working against Netflix House, it’s that the timing of its launch is rather unfortunate, given how increasingly unsafe the U.S. is becoming due to the fascist actions of the government. For that reason, I can’t in good conscience recommend travelling there for any reason, let alone an entertainment venue. But if, for whatever reason, you’re still ready, willing and able to travel, Netflix House is certainly worth checking out. Being situated in Philadelphia means it’s also conveniently quite close to New York for those potentially doing longer cross-state trips. (And as an aforementioned movie buff, I also got a real kick out of visiting the iconic “Rocky Steps” in front of the Philadelphia Art Museum.)

All in all, Netflix House is an incredibly promising new venture, and I’m hopeful Netflix will continue to expand it into other cities, including those in Canada. Netflix House is now open to the public. More information on ticketing for the experiences can be found on Netflix’s website.