The global mega hit ‘Squid Game’ has entered into a full-scale countdown to warm up ahead of the release of Season 2 on the 26th. As Season 1 was the first work to achieve the #1 viewership ranking in all countries (94 countries) where Netflix is available, Netflix has launched a true ‘all-out promotional offensive’ by gathering all of its ‘global capabilities’ for Season 2.

○‘largest-ever’ from promotions to events

Netflix, which had been promoting ‘Squid Game’ globally since August by conducting pre-promotions in various countries around the world, including Seoul, Paris, France, LA, USA, Bogota, Colombia, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Mumbai, India, held a ‘largest-ever’ production presentation that seemed to have moved the series set intact at Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) on the 9th.

Director Hwang Dong-hyuk and 12 actors including Lee Jung-jae, Lee Byung-hun, Im Si-wan, Kang Ha-neul, Wi Ha-joon, and Park Sung-hoon attended the event, and not only domestic reporters but also 160 foreign press and influencers from 22 countries including the US, Argentina, Brazil, the UK, Japan, Australia, India, and Thailand attended.

From 7 PM that day, a fan event will be held with a total of 22 actors, including supporting actors who did not attend the production conference as well as ‘Season 1 main characters’ Park Hae-soo and Jung Ho-yeon. This is the first time Netflix has held such a large-scale event for a Korean original.

On the 23rd, three days before the main release, Netflix will also hold a press preview of all seven episodes of Season 2 in theaters for the media. Netflix original series usually provide online previews for the media ahead of the service launch, but in the case of ‘Squid Game’, a preview screening was prepared to block any possibility of external leaks.

○Bigger scale, richer drama

A production cost of 100 billion won was invested in season 2, which is four times that of season 1 (25.3 billion won) and the highest in the history of Korean dramas. In line with this, director Hwang Dong-hyeok said that rather than the ‘unmost scale’ resulting from the enormous production cost, he put an emphasis on the “story” and expressed confidence in the tight storytelling that surpasses season 1.

He also hinted at the plot that runs through season 2. Director Hwang said, “The conflict between Ki-hoon (Lee Jung-jae), the winner of season 1 who is trying to end the game of death, and Frontman (Lee Byung-hun) who is trying to destroy him will be the center.”

Lee Byung-hun, who started by saying, “Frontman does more than the functional role shown in season 1,” said that although people are now familiar with the results of the various games shown in the previous part, the shock may be somewhat less, and there will be “a (powerful) drama with more stories and more characters,” drawing attention.

Lee Jung-jae said, “This is a work where I felt a greater ‘burden’ than ever before,” but emphasized that, “rather than being greedy about showing something new, I tried to fully capture the charm of season 1 in season 2. You will be able to fully experience the strengths of ‘Squid Game’ that you felt in the previous part.”


Reporter Seungmi Lee smlee@donga.com