One of Bill Skarsgård’s earliest successes has resurfaced as a streaming hit in the United States.
Skarsgård has been professionally acting for most of his life, having made his onscreen debut in the 2000 Swedish thriller movie White Water Fury. These days, he’s arguably best known for playing Pennywise the Dancing Clown in the IT movies, who was previously played by Tim Curry in the IT miniseries adaptation. Skarsgård’s other notable film credits include Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, Eternals, John Wick: Chapter 4, and Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu remake.
Additionally, the actor also has some TV work on his resume, with the two biggest entries also being tied to Stephen King’s literary work. Along with recently reprising Pennywise in the HBO Max series IT: Welcome to Derry, he also played multiple roles on Hulu’s Castle Rock. However, before both shows, Skarsgård gained early notoriety for a three-part Netflix fantasy thriller series that’s back on the streaming charts, albeit in a different way.
Flixpatrol reports that <em>Hemlock Grove</em> is ranked in second place on the Apple TV Store’s PVOD TV charts today. It’s unclear whether this surge in popularity is tied to Skarsgård starring opposite Hugh Jackman in the recently-released The Death of Robin Hood or some other reason. The show originally ran on Netflix for three seasons from 2013 to 2015. It was one of the streaming platform’s first original programs.
Adapting from the same-named book by Brian McGreevy, Hemlock Grove takes place in the title town located in Pennsylvania, where there’s a sharp divide between the wealthy and impoverished citizens. The show sees Skarsgård’s Roman Godfrey, whose family runs both the Godfrey Institute for Biomedical Technologies and the Hemlock Acres Hospital, befriending a newcomer named Peter Rumancek, played by Landon Liboiron. It’s soon revealed that Peter is a werewolf, and he and Roman team up to solve who’s behind the murders that have been plaguing the town.
Skarsgård and Liboiron were joined by Famke Janssen, who played Olivia Godfrey, Roman’s mother, for the entirety of Hemlock Grove’s run. Other series regulars over the three seasons included Penelope Mitchell, Freya Tingley, Kaniehtiio Horn, Joel de la Fuente, Dougray Scott, Camille De Pazzis, and Madeleine Martin. Behind the scenes, McGreevy developed the Hemlock Grove TV series with Lee Shipman, and they also shared showrunning duties.
Similar to the original novel, Netflix’s Hemlock Grove earned mixed-to-negative critical reception. It has a 38% Tomatometer ranking among professional critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and its audience-driven Popcornmeter ranks at 65%. ScreenRant’s Hemlock Grove season 2 review said that the show went from being “absolutely unwatchable” in its first season to “a worthy guilty pleasure.”
In October 2022, Hemlock Grove was removed from Netflix. One month later, FilmRise acquired the show’s streaming rights, but as evidenced by the latest numbers, it’s also proven to be popular as a digital purchase from the Apple TV Store. It trails on the United States’ TV charts only behind World War II with Tom Hanks, the docuseries that is currently airing weekly on the History Channel.
