‘Squid Game’ Spinoffs? Creator of Netflix Hit Has Multiple Ideas
[This story contains major spoilers from the Squid Game season two finale.]
Hwang Dong-hyuk has crafted Squid Game as a three-season story. But the creator of Netflix’s global smash-hit series has ideas to continue on by turning it into a franchise.
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“When we were doing season one, I was saying there was never going to be another season,” Hwang told The Hollywood Reporter when launching season two. “And so if the time comes, and it just so happens that I’m able to come up with a character or a different story, then maybe there might be a comeback. But I’m thinking more along the lines of a spinoff.”
Among the multiple ideas he shared for a spinoff series emerges a theme: filling in the gaps. Hwang suggests telling the backstories of other characters, or even exploring the lost time between seasons one and two for returning characters Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) and/or Recruiter (Gong Yoo), the latter who died early on in season two.
“One of the ideas I’m tossing around is what happened between season one and two. There’s a three-year gap. So, for example, what was the Front Man doing during those three years?” said Hwang. “What was the Recruiter doing? When I have some downtime, I like to just toss some ideas around and go wild with my imagination. So I guess we can be open to anything.”
Hwang reiterated that he’s committed to this three-season story completing the journey for Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), the protagonist who reentered the Squid Games in the second season in hopes of stopping them. After launching with season one in 2021 and becoming Netflix’s most popular title of all time, the highly anticipated second season returned on Dec. 26 and quickly set a new viewership record when it amassed a whopping 68 million views in its first four days. The third and final season is due out in 2025, though a premiere date has yet to be announced.
After the meteoric global success of Squid Game season one (which also spawned the Netflix reality series Squid Game: The Challenge), Hwang leaned into the idea he had brewing to keep the series going. “I thought it would be the story of Gi-hun turning away from where he was at the end of season one and going back into the games in order to put a stop to the game,” Hwang has explained of how Gi-hun’s desperation to stop the games is what drove season two.
The second season ended on a cliffhanger as Gi-hun’s mutiny against the guards of the Games is ultimately thwarted by the Front Man who, unknown to Gi-hun but known to the audience, has been posing as his friend and ally Young-il. The final scene sees the Front Man executing Gi-hun’s best friend in front of him, Park Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan), and warning him about the consequences of his rebellion.
The third season, Hwang told THR in a previous cover story, will continue to focus on the clash between Gi-hun and Front Man, who also is a past winner of the game. The fate of the rest of the survivors and the Games themselves have been left up in the air. However, a mid-credits scene following the season two finale teased a new Red Light-Green Light game doll, signifying that indeed the Games will go on. (Netflix released an expanded teaser of that moment on social media, revealing the doll’s name as Chul-su).
“The third season will really explore that sense of loss and failure, that guilt weighing so heavily on Gi-hun. How’s he going to navigate the story further with all of that weighing down on him?” Hwang recently told THR after the second season’s release.
“I see the third season as being the finale to this story… because I believe I’ve had closure to the story I wanted to tell about society through the character of Seong Gi-hun,” he continued. “If I ever wanted to go back to the world of Squid Game, it would be about different characters with a different story arc. For example, the masked guards. How did they end up here? What do they do in their downtime? Something like that, maybe.”
Meanwhile, Gi-hun’s fate has already been written. Hwang wrote seasons two and three back to back, and the seasons also filmed back to back. If you’re looking for any clues on how Gi-hun’s game will end, here’s what Hwang said about what’s in store.
“I wanted to conclude season two after all of Gi-hun’s attempts had gone to failure,” he told THR. “The price he had to pay was losing his longest and most precious best friend at the hands of the Front Man, and I wanted to end the second season at that very moment — then begin the next season from that space where he’s ridden with a huge amount of guilt and defeat. I wanted to see where that would carry Gi-hun further on.”
As for if there’s any redemption in store for the Front Man, Hwang says in season three “there’s an answer to that question.”
Squid Game season two is now streaming on Netflix.
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