‘Squid Game’ – Netflix’s Surprise Hit Show is Aiming for a Sequel
The streaming service is hoping to get more green lights and marbles to get more Squid Game.
The show focuses on a group of people invited to play games from their childhood – the prize is $38.5 million. All participants are revealed to be in crippling debt to various agencies, businesses, and gangsters with everything and nothing to lose. It’s a classic survival of the fittest game where we get to find out what this bunch of characters are willing to do to win and to get out alive.
The story is a new telling of The Most Dangerous Game mixed with Hostel, Battle Royale, and Running Man. It’s simple and not. The nine episodes are easy to binge over a couple of nights, and it’s got a great cast (the world can always use more Lee Byung-hun, Jung-Jae Lee, and Gong Yoo).
The show’s creator, Dong-hyuk Hwang, started working on the story in 2008. It took him years to get it off the ground because of harsh criticism for its use of traditional Korean childhood games as a way to choose who lives and who dies – time has changed and his idea works. During a roundtable with Netflix Korea Hwang revealed his reasoning behind that choice…
“Viewers can focus more on the complexities of the characters and be fully immersed in the story when the rules of the games are simple. People are attracted to the chilling irony of grown-up adults risking their lives to win money to repay their debts by playing kids’ games.”
The Korean dystopian drama has rocketed up Netflix’s view charts and is the talk of social media. It topped Netflix’s drama charts in the 83 countries Netflix provides service to. Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, said during during Code 2021 that the show is on track to become the streamer’s biggest ever. They did make the wise choice to release it at the same time across all 83 countries – making the biggest splash possible.
via Netflix
Its success was a surprise to Hwang and Netflix, so a sequel wasn’t planned. The first round of games left enough threads to pull if they want to continue, and the folks at Netflix are doing their best to make it happen. Hwang is currently working on other projects and his methods take a major toll on him. He mentioned in a recent interview that it took him six months to make the first two episodes before exhaustion got the better of him. Maybe a writers room and some secondary directors would help.
We’ll have to wait and see if Dong-hyuk Hwang and Netflix can find the right combination – the fans are certainly ready to see Seung Gi-hun’s next move.
Season one of Squid Game is available on Netflix now.
