Creating “Squid Game” is just as dangerous as playing it.
Hwang Dong-hyuk, the mastermind behind the South Korean thriller series on Netflix, recently told the BBC he lost “eight or nine” teeth filming the first season of the show.
In a 2022 interview with Variety, the 53-year-old producer said that six of his teeth fell out during the production of the show — but he corrected that number this week.
Hwang’s Emmy Award-winning series follows hundreds of destitute citizens as they participate in a mysterious “survive or die” contest that promises to award one winner with a transformative sum of money, so long as they survive a sick Field Day-inspired tournament of perverse children’s games.
“Even though the first series was such a huge global success, honestly I didn’t make much,” the Seoul native told the BBC while promoting Season 2, which premieres on Dec. 26.
“So doing the second series will help compensate me for the success of the first one too,” he added. “And I didn’t fully finish the story.”
When asked why he changed about his mind about doing another season, Hwang replied, “Money.”
Hwang based “Squid Game” on his struggles following the economic crisis that hit South Korea in 2009.
It became Netflix’s most-watched show ever when the first season dropped in September 2021.
Season 2 is featuring all new characters aside from Lee Jung-jae’s Seong Gi-hun, the reigning champion who returns to the game to end it once and for all.
“The stress I feel now is much greater,” Hwang said about making the new season.
After the first season came out, Hwang revealed that he didn’t get rich despite the show’s huge success. He told the Guardian in October 2021 that the series only gave him “enough to put food on the table.”
“It’s not like Netflix is paying me a bonus,” he added at the time.
Hwang also spoke about how making the show took a serious toll on his body and mind.
“It was physically, mentally and emotionally draining,” the director said. “I kept having new ideas and revising the episodes as we were filming so the amount of work multiplied.”
Hwang has confirmed that “Squid Game” will end with Season 3, expected to be released in 2025.
“When I was thinking about the idea for the ending of Season 3, I think it sort of naturally came to me that this was the finale,” he told the Hollywood Reporter last week.
“I believed that with that story, I was able to tell everything that I wanted to tell through the story of Squid Game and also in the perspective of Gi-hun as a character, and I thought that we don’t need any further stories from here,” he added.
“Squid Game” Season 2 premieres Dec. 26 on Netflix.
