Picture: Netflix
Despite hailing from the creators of the global phenomenon Money Heist (La casa de papel) and being one of the most expensive and ambitious projects from Netflix Spain, the streamer has decided not to move forward with a second season of of Billionaires’ Bunker (El refugio atómico in Spanish).
The cancellation confirmation comes from Spanish news outlet El País, which reported yesterday, alongside the Berlin season 2 news, that the series had been quietly canceled behind the scenes.
Debuting on Netflix on September 19th, 2025, the series centered on a group of billionaires retreating to a luxury, retro-futuristic bunker to wait out World War III. Pau Simón, Alícia Falcó, Miren Ibarguren, Agustina Bisio, and Joaquín Furriel were amongst the cast, with the series filmed in part at Netflix’s sprawling Tres Cantos campus just outside Madrid.
The cancellation marks a significant pivot from how the show was originally marketed. Before its premiere last September, Netflix had positioned the show as a flagship production. It’s also particularly stinging because the series ends on an almighty cliffhanger. The eight-episode first season concluded with an open ending, which will now remain unresolved. You can read more about where we predicted the series would’ve picked up and headed next in our post here.
Diego Ávalos, Netflix’s VP of Content in Spain, had previously stated in an interview that, “There has not been a series as ambitious in the history of Spain as El refugio atómico.”
Upon the release of season 1, in an interview with Spanish website Espinof, Pina had suggested they were planning for a second season, saying, “We have thought about how to start things back again, since we had to do it in order to write the season finale. So what happens immediately afterwards is laid out, as well as ideas on how to get even more mean and hardcore. What we have not thought about yet is how season 2 would be mapped out.”
How well did Billionaires’ Bunker perform on Netflix?
The show ultimately featured in the weekly Netflix top 10s for four weeks between September 14th and October 12th, amassing 152.0 million viewing hours and 20.7 million completed views. Stacked against other Spanish show premieres in recent years, you can see the show did pretty well, albeit not quite to the level of performance of the Money Heist spin-off Berlin:
Where the show did come undone, perhaps, is that it didn’t look particularly sticky in the daily Netflix top 10s. While it did feature in the Netflix top 10s in 90 regions, it only averaged 20 days in the daily top 10s around the world and 36 consecutive days in Spain. Given the show’s budget, perhaps Netflix hoped it would be a bit more leggy. The series also failed to connect with critics, sitting at only 33% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Álex Pina and creative partner Esther Martínez Lobato have ultimately had a mixed run at Netflix since the streamer acquired Money Heist nearly a decade ago. Their first English-language project was promptly canceled after its first season, and while Sky Rojo ran for three seasons, it never quite reached the viewership heights of Money Heist.
Are you disappointed that Billionaires’ Bunker won’t be returning to Netflix for a season 2?
