Squid Game: The Challenge may have been controversial—but it was a huge hit for Netflix, and now there’s good news for both the streamer and fans who’d much rather have the real deal than the reality competition spin-off: the smash hit South Korean thriller will finally return this year.
Netflix has been teasing Squid Game season two since summer 2022, but it felt like an inevitability given the series’ stratospheric popularity after its September 2021 debut. Deadline reports that a newly released letter to Netflix investors—who have just as much of an interest in Squid Game season two as fans do, if not more, considering the first season’s status as Netflix’s most-watched series of all time—announced that “despite last year’s strikes pushing back the launch of some titles, we have a big, bold slate for 2024.” That slate includes more Squid Game.
No specific date was given for season two’s premiere—Deadline notes it “will start production later this year”—but the returning cast includes Lee Byung-hun (last season’s main character, Seong Gi-hun), Wi Ha-jun (who plays Hwang Jun-ho, the undercover cop), and Gong Yoo (the Squid Game contestant recruiter). There will also be a significant number of new cast members—not surprising considering most of season one’s characters were, uh, brutally killed—and Hwang Dong-hyuk will be back as director and exec producer.
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