The question is no longer if there will be more “Squid Game,” series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk revealed during an event celebrating the Korean-language Netflix hit Monday, but when you will get a second season.
“So there’s been so much pressure, so much demand and so much love for a second season,” the “Squid Game” creator said in an on-camera interview with the Associated Press. “So I almost feel like you leave us no choice! But I will say, there will indeed be a second season. It’s in my head right now. I’m in the planning process currently. But I do think it’s too early to say when and how it’s going to happen. So I will promise you this… Gi-hun will come back, he’ll do something for the world.”
The first season of Netflix’s “Squid Game” follows 456 desperate contestants, including Lee Jung-jae’s Seong Gi-hun and Park Hae-soo’s Cho Sang-woo, as they compete in a mysterious and deadly survival game involving multiple rounds of childhood games to win 45.6 billion won prize money that can pull them out of their misery.
Watch the Associated Press’s video interview with Hwang Dong-hyuk above, via USA Today.
Representatives for Netflix did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for further comment on “Squid Game” Season 2 Tuesday.
Written and directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk, the nine-episode first season of “Squid Game,” which launched Sept. 17, quickly became a word-of-mouth hit, drawing in big-name fans like LeBron James. (James famously did not like the ending to “Squid Game” — criticism which Hwang Dong-hyuk took in amusing stride — so maybe he’ll be among the most excited for a second season.)
Netflix said two-thirds of households that have the streaming service sampled the first season within its first four weeks. In other words, 142 million of Nielsen’s 214 million households watched at least two minutes of any “Squid Game” episode within the first 28 days of its availability.
If you need more evidence that “Squid Game” was an insane ratings hit, take a look at Nielsen’s streaming rankings for the Week of Sept. 27 to Oct. 3.
In that week alone, which was the Korean show’s second full week (and third overall) on Netflix, “Squid Game” was streamed for 3.260 billion minutes. That makes “Squid Game” the only show this year to top 3 billion minutes streamed in one week, and the first since “The Crown” pulled off the feat last fall.
Its first full week on Netflix, “Squid Game” was watched for 1.9 billion minutes, also according to Nielsen.