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A second season of the Korean drama ‘Squid Game’ is in the works, Netflix’s co-CEO and chief content officer Ted Sarandos.
During a discussion of the streaming giant’s fourth-quarter earnings interview, he said that the “The Squid Game universe has just begun,” and replied “absolutely,” when asked if it would be getting a second season.
The Korean thriller became Netflix’s biggest TV show ever, with 142 million member households choosing to watch the title in the first four weeks, the company’s third-quarter earnings letter revealed in October. It generated 1.65 billion hours viewed in its first four weeks globally, and 95% of its viewership came from outside South Korea.
Last November, the show’s creator, writer and director Hwang Dong-hyuk told the Associated Press that ‘Squid Game’ would “indeed” be getting a second season, and said that actor Lee Jung-jae will return as the show’s protagonist.
Released last September, the Korean dystopian thriller show also ranked as its number one program in 94 countries, including the US, and pierced the cultural zeitgeist.
It’s also estimated to be worth AED 3.3 billion for the streaming giant, after costing just AED 78.6 million to produce, Bloomberg reported, citing figures from an internal Netflix document.
The streaming conglomerate has been investing in Korean language programming since 2017. It’s also invested AED 2.4 billion (770 billion Korean won) in the country’s creative industry, generating an economic impact of AED 17.2 billion (5.6 trillion Korean won) and creating 16 thousand jobs, it said in a report. It also recently announced that more than 25 Korean shows — its largest number to date — will be launched this year on the platform.