A new “immersive experience” with games and attractions, Netflix House will bring “Stranger Things” and”One Piece” to life for fans. See inside in an exclusive preview.
Inside Netflix House with ‘Wednesday,’ ‘Stranger Things’ – Exclusive
USA TODAY’s Kelly Lawler brings you an exclusive look inside Netflix House Philadelphia, where many popular Netflix stories are coming to life.
KING OF PRUSSIA, PA− In 2025 it’s not enough for streamers like Netflix to dominate our time watching TV at home. They want our time out of the house, too.
The streaming giant has freed itself from the TV screen in your living room and exploded into your local mall – well, at least if you live near Philadelphia (and in a few weeks, also Dallas). Meet Netflix House, a shiny new attraction the company describes as an “immersive experience” where you can walk onto replica sets from shows like “Stranger Things” and “Wednesday” and play miniature golf inspired by “Love is Blind” and the WWE.
Netflix House is like a theme park writ small or a Hot Topic and arcade writ extremely large: It’s a multilevel funhouse decorated and decked out like a dozen of the streamer’s most-popular titles, with a full service restaurant, merchandise store, movie theater and four major attractions (each for a fee). There’s 9-hole mini-golf, virtual reality, an escape room and a carnival with arcade-style games and an interactive mystery to solve.
It’s an at-times almost heady experience of sights, sounds and photo ops, all designed to give super fans a taste of their favorite fictional worlds. Fans can get their first taste when the first Netflix House opens Nov. 12 in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, at the region’s popular mall.
What is Netflix House? Where did it come from?
The idea for Netflix House has been germinating at the company for years, Chief Marketing Officer Marian Lee told USA TODAY at the site, just a week before the attraction was set to open in suburban Philadelphia. “We have always had fan activations for shows and films that were coming out,” she said sitting in Netflix House’s large movie theater, full of comfortable red recliners.
After a successful COVID-era “Stranger Things” drive-in experience, the streamer began testing “about 40 different types of experiences [in] 300 cities around the world.”
Partnering with Simon Malls, the largest shopping mall realty group in the country, allowed Netflix to set up permanent homes in King of Prussia starting Nov. 12 and in Dallas on Dec. 11 at the Galleria Dallas Mall. Malls have what Netflix wanted: huge, high-ceiling spaces to build out their creative worlds, plus foot traffic from hopefully curious families looking for a day out.
You could spend the whole day or just 10 minutes in the space, and Lee hopes fans and visitors will do both. “You might just be walking through the mall and saying, ‘Oh, I like that shirt and I know my friend loves “Stranger Things,'” she said. “Then I think once people figure out what is in there, they can plan forward and say like, ‘Hey, let’s get together [and come back].'”
And it’s not just the attractions, the store and the restaurant that Netflix House has on offer. Its full-size movie theater, “TUDUM Theater,” presents opportunities for talent from shows and films to visit, for watch parties for live events like WWE and for yet more “KPop Demon Hunters” singalongs (as of its initial opening, no official events have been planned yet). Anything to get bodies in the space, and hopefully, make them come back for more.
“I think that will be great for people to come in [and do everything],” Lee said, “but we also expect people to just come in and eat a pretzel.”
What it’s like inside Netflix House?
Walking into Netflix House in King of Prussia, a busy suburb about 45 minutes outside Center City Philadelphia, is an overwhelming experience.
In a truly enormous space, over 100,000 square feet, that was once a Lord & Taylor department store, you are greeted with giant murals depicting Netflix shows on all sides. A giant hand, representative of Thing from “Wednesday,” protrudes from a wall to your right. Two experiences take up the ground floor: “Wednesday: Eve of the Outcasts,” a collection of carnival and mystery games, and “One Piece: Quest for the Devil Fruit,” a multistage escape room adventure that locks you in jail before eventually you have to “defuse” a “bomb.”
Up a set of shiny, Netflix-red stairs is a massive store, where you can buy Netflix merch and localized gear in the colors of the Philadelphia Eagles NFL team. Highlights of the store include “Bridgerton” coloring books, Ms. Rachel plush dolls and summer’s surprise smash hit film “KPop Demon Hunters”-themed specialized ramen noodle packs.
Behind the store is a huge restaurant, Netflix Bites, with shiny brick pizza oven and dishes like “Selling Caesar” salad and “Featherington French Toast,” each a reference to Netflix hits “Selling Sunset” and “Bridgerton,” respectively.
Back near the grand staircase are the other two large attractions: A nine-hole mini-golf course complete with an app and based on a variety of Netflix shows; and an intense virtual-reality experience. The VR is based on on “Squid Game,” Stranger Things” and film “Rebel Moon,” with fake guns and haptic get-ups for the players, with technology from Sandbox VR.
How do I visit Netflix House? How much does it cost?
Beginning Nov. 12, you can visit Netflix House from Mondays through Thursdays from 10 a.m.-10 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m.-midnight and Sundays from 10 a.m.-8 p.m. (barring special holiday hours).
Entering Netflix House is free and there are quite a few things you can do and explore without paying a cent. In addition to browsing the store there is a full-size recreation of a set from “Stranger Things” (the Byers family living room that fans will instantly recognize), and multiple photo opportunities outside the paid attractions like a “Bridgerton” throne, “Squid Game” staircase and a “Big Mouth” cardboard cutout.
“You can roam around, you can take photos,” Lee said. “We want people to actually [go] through and touch things and take photos, and you can buy things or not.”
For the paid attractions, the “Wednesday” and “One Piece” experiences start at $39 a ticket, and Lee predicts each will take fans about an hour to get through. The VR game starts at $25 a ticket, and mini golf will only run you $15 a person. Tickets will be available at netflixhouse.com, and for purchase in person.
Is Netflix House appropriate for kids?
Lee and the Netflix team see Netflix House as a family-friendly day out at the mall, and there are plenty of elements from Netflix’s many children’s and young adult shows and films, including the ubiquitous “Demon Hunters” and “Sesame Street,” joining the streamer Nov. 10.
The paid experiences are not rated and are up to parental discretion, but some might be too much or too scary for the very youngest Netflix fans: The VR experience uses fake guns and is based on mature programming; the “One Piece” escape room requires a higher level deduction and critical thinking; and there are a few jump scares in the “Wednesday” fun house.
What’s the future for Netflix House?
“If I had to put my finger on it,” Lee said of the future plans for Netflix Houses, the goal is to have “one in every major city.”
But officially, so far, it’s only the King of Prussia location, the Dallas location and a Las Vegas venue opening in 2027. “We feel really lucky that we have on the roadmap these two that are opening.”
The spaces are modular and will change as the popular titles on Netflix do. Lee spoke of forthcoming installations from Guillermo del Toro’s acclaimed “Frankenstein” movie among other additions.
Her goal is to connect fans to the shows and films they love, and sees Netflix House as an accessible form of entertainment even as families are pickier with their disposable income amid uncertain economic times. “Fandom is fandom, and if you are a lover of a show or film it doesn’t ebb and flow. You want more of it,” she said.
“It’s a place that we want [fans] to be entertained just the way we’re entertaining them at home, but that they can come [to] in real life and experience that same joy and emotional connection to the things that they love to watch on their screens at home. … I want people to have a lot of surprise and delight, and leave feeling like it was worth it for them to walk in.”
