“The Squid Game universe has just begun.”
Those are the words of Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, who confirmed during Netflix’s fourth-quarter earnings call Thursday that there will “absolutely” be a second season of the surprise smash-hit Korean drama.
Creator Hwang Dong-hyuk has talked about making a second season of the dystopian drama since it became Netflix’s most-watched series ever, and has even teased a third season. However, Sarandos’ comments today mark the first time any of the streamer’s senior execs have confirmed the renewal.
Hwang created, wrote, directed and exec produced the nine-part series, which has reached more than 142 million Netflix households and being streamed for more than 1.6 billion hours.
The series tells the story of a mysterious invitation that sees 456 participants, all of whom are in dire financial situations, locked in a secret location and forced to play a series of traditional Korean kids games – such as Red Light, Green Light and tug of war – in order to win 45.6 billion won ($38M). However, if they don’t win, they die.
It comes the same week that Netflix revealed it would launch 25 shows out of South Korea this year. Sarandos admitted that the Oscar success of Parasite was a “turning point” for Korean drama.
He applauded the streamer’s local team for the success of Squid Game.
“They didn’t try to make the show different so that it would travel, but tried to find all the things about Korean cinema and Korean drama and build them up in a way and new levels of production values,” he said. “It’s not like we had to go in and teach anyone in Korea how to make great content. It’s an incredible market for that. There’s always been curiosity around the world, [the] K Drama market has always had pockets of success all over the place, but the ease of delivery that we’ve offered has pushed that into the mainstream.”
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