In Los Angeles, 1,600 people ran a 4.56-kilometer race to win admission to an early screening of the show.
In Paris, Netflix shut down the Champs-Élysées so 1,000 participants could test their mettle in a classic children’s game of Red Light, Green Light before 20,000 spectators.
And in Seoul, the Dongdaemun Design Plaza was transformed for a K-pop-like concert, complete with confetti, light sticks and a dance number featuring pink-clad guards.
Hello, world. “Squid Game” is back.
When the deadly, dystopian South Korean show debuted in September 2021, it became a surprise worldwide sensation. It racked up 2.8 billion views on Netflix, the most-watched show or film ever on the service. Sales of white slip-on Vans spiked significantly. Fans designed their own track suits. Backyard versions of Red Light, Green Light became a thing. Netflix was not prepared for the frenzy.
“Everything we did outside of Korea was reactive, because we didn’t know,” Marian Lee, Netflix’s chief marketing officer, said about the huge response. “Even the content executives didn’t anticipate that it would be such a global phenomenon.”
It seems that the only unknown surrounding the second season, which arrives Thursday, is just how many people will watch.
Netflix’s marketing budget for the new season is far bigger than it was for the first one, now about the size earmarked for a couple of the company’s other global hits, “Stranger Things” and “Bridgerton.” Netflix is also pushing the first season on its service, to remind people of the three-year-old show. The company’s new “Squid Game” video game was also just released, and can be played whether or not you have a Netflix account. Puma is making its own version of the show’s track suit, and McDonald’s Australia just unveiled a “Squid Game” happy meal.
“We’ve had a very specific campaign to get people to rewatch, because you kind of just remember: ‘Oh, childhood games. People die. That was shocking,’” Ms. Lee added. “We also need to activate the fandom, to get them talking.”
When the first season became a global blockbuster, it reaffirmed Netflix’s international strategy of hiring local creative executives to make shows for people in their own country. It has been increasingly crucial for growing the business.
The streaming giant started making local content for various regions around the world in 2015, with the show “Club de Cuervos” in Mexico. The first series to find an audience outside its local country was the Spanish heist drama “La Casa de Papel,” which, in its five seasons, generated 6.7 billion hours viewed, according to Netflix. Now the company has 26 local offices overseas, and most of its subscriber growth comes from areas outside the United States.
“That investment in those countries is a really important part of what we do,” said Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s chief content officer. “They all have the authority to greenlight their own shows and movies.”
Netflix is far ahead of other streamers in its international approach. In Asia, for example, the company dominates its competitors. Max started rolling out its app only in September. It has yet to enter South Korea. Amazon Prime shuttered its Southeast Asian programming unit in January. And Paramount+ announced a new licensing agreement in South Korea this month but has no plans to make original content there.
Instead, many streaming companies prefer to take an approach similar to Disney’s: Make movies and television shows with broad enough appeal that they will connect to audiences globally.
“We had two billion-dollar movies so far this year — actually the only two in the industry,” Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, said on his company’s most recent earnings call. “The box office that those movies garnered came from all over the world.
“And if you look at some of our competitors, who don’t have movies of that quality or that level of success, they have to spend more in local content,” he said.
The creator of “Squid Game,” Hwang Dong-hyuk, spent more than a decade imagining the first season. Born of his own economic struggles early in his career, the nine episodes reflected the class disparity in South Korea and tapped into a global economic insecurity. In addition, the childlike games and colorful iconography that contrasted with the brutal violence made the series endlessly watchable. Its success became a catalyst for audiences worldwide to embrace movies and television shows from Mr. Hwang’s home country.
“You can’t deny the huge impact the first season had in the film industry and how it’s created global interest in South Korea’s politics, economics and history,” said Lee Gyu Tag, a professor of cultural studies at George Mason University Korea.
Yet Mr. Hwang, who won an Emmy for directing, was as unprepared for a second season as Netflix was, particularly since most South Korean shows are typically only one season.
“It took a little while” to determine whether or not there would be a second season, Ms. Bajaria said.
For Mr. Hwang, the pandemic may have ended, but global strife and general antipathy still reign, allowing for many fruitful story lines. He shot the second and third seasons, which is the final one, back to back.
“People are drawing lines, becoming more hostile toward one another, and global conflicts seem to be deepening,” he said during a news conference in Seoul this month. He added that he hoped the show “will remind viewers of what’s going on in our society, and the rest of the world.”
Indeed, the seven-episode second season reunites audiences with the “Squid Game” winner Seong Gi-hun, played by Lee Jung-jae (also an Emmy winner), who took home 45.6 billion won ($31.5 million) and a lifetime of guilt because he survived while every other contestant in the previous season died. He returns to the arena in an effort to stop the games forever. Instead, he meets a new cohort of contestants, each desperate to win the prize money. This time, the players are divided into two fluid groups: the O’s, who want the deadly game play to stop, and the X’s, who are willing to risk their lives to keep it going.
In an interview, Mr. Hwang said the O/X divide was indicative of a world that had become “more polarized” than ever.
“In the U.S. that could be race. In South Korea, it’s gender. In the Middle East, it could be religion,” he said. “There is no willingness to embrace the other side, and people are making each other the enemy.”
For Netflix, the question is whether Season 2 will eclipse the first season as the most-watched show on Netflix ever. Ms. Lee thinks it can happen. Ms. Bajaria is less optimistic.
“It is very hard to beat being the most popular show in the world, so I’d say it’s a high bar,” Ms. Bajaria said. “But I think this has all of those ingredients of a big fat hit show.”
For Mr. Hwang, Season 2 and the final season, which will debut sometime in 2025, represent all he has to give.
“I lost six, seven teeth while making Season 1, but I’ve probably lost six to seven years off my life making ‘Squid Game’ Seasons 2 and 3,” he said. “I’ve put my mind, body and soul into making this happen.”
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