Major OTT (online video services) are releasing big-budget blockbusters at the end of the year and engaging in a fierce ‘box office war’. As Netflix‘s ‘Squid Game’ Season 2, one of the most anticipated global dramas, is set to be released on the 26th, Disney+ and Coupang Play’s ‘The Lighting Store’ and ‘Family Planning’, respectively, have taken the lead with favorable reviews.

○Season 2‘s splendid return

‘Squid Game’, which had a cumulative viewing time of 2.2 billion hours in Season 1, has already shown signs of extraordinary box office success even before its general release on the 26th, such as being nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series - Drama, a representative American film and TV awards ceremony.

Even though the official review embargo (publicity suspension) has not been lifted immediately after the North American premiere, some local critics are hinting on social media that “this is a work that surpasses Season 1” is out. One local critic praised Season 2 as a masterpiece that “delves deeply into the human psyche,” while another journalist raved, “This is the glorious return of Netflix’s most popular drama ever. It was worth the wait.”

Director Hwang Dong-hyeok, who directed “Squid Game,” said he was confident that Season 2 would not only be fun to watch, but would also deeply incorporate the social messages that have persisted since Season 1. “Conflicts are deepening not only between countries, but also within societies,” he said. “I hope that through ‘Squid Game’, you will have the opportunity to look back on such a world,” he said.
○ Fight against ‘Squid Game’

Ahead of the release of the OTT powerhouse ‘Squid Game’, Disney+ and Coupang Play have been releasing ‘The Lighting Store’ and ‘Family Plan’, which they have each put forward as their most ambitious works of the year, every week since the beginning of this month. ‘The Lighting Store’ is a story about suspicious people who visit a lighting store that connects the living and the dead, while ‘Family Plan’ is about a mother with the ability to manipulate memories and her family punishing villains.

‘The Lighting Store’, which was highly anticipated as a follow-up to last year’s hit ‘Moving’, was released on the 4th and rose to 2nd place on the TV show rankings of FlixPatrol, a global OTT service ranking site. A user of IMDb, the world‘s largest movie and drama database, defined ‘The Lighting Store’ as a ‘high-quality drama’ and said, “From the story to the acting, to the filming, everything is perfect.”

‘Family Plan’ has also gotten off to a good start and is on a winning streak. Not only did it break the record for the number of viewers in its first week of release, but it also recorded the highest completion rate (the percentage of viewers who watched each episode to the end), achieving the highest opening score on the platform. There are even predictions that it will surpass Coupang Play’s highest-grossing work, ‘Boys‘ Generation’.


Reporter Seungmi Lee smlee@donga.com