Shinsuke Sato on the Success of Netflix’s ‘Alice in Borderland,’ Returning to Films

Shinsuke Sato has given a significant portion of his professional career to the Netflix Japan sci-fi series Alice in Borderland, a situation that is no mean feat given how prolific the Japanese filmmaker has been in recent years, regularly releasing one or perhaps two feature films a year. Now running for three seasons after the launch of the third chapter of Alice in Borderland in late September, Sato’s passion project has garnered him international notoriety, with the series by far and away the most successful Japanese original project from Netflix.

Season three of Alice in Borderland has continued the franchise’s hot streak, and since launch, it spent three weeks in Netflix’s coveted Global Top 10 and hit No.5 in the global Non-English Shows list. One month after launch it had garnered over 20.5 million viewing hours and hit the Top 10 in 30 countries including Japan, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, France,…