‘Squid Game’ CREATOR EXPLAINS HIS HERO’S FATE AND TALKS SPINOFF PETENTIAL

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No one have more anticipation around the release of the final season of Squid Game Than it Creator, Hwang Dong-Hyuk.

“FOR The PAST SIX YEARS, THERE HASN’T BEEN A SNAY THAT WENT BY WITHOUT ME THINKING ABOUT Squid Game, ” Says The Writer and Director of Everi Episode of Netflix’s Most Globally Popular Show of All Time. “This is someting that have havetely consumed me.”

After launching with Season One in 2021 to Global Appeal, IT Was A No-Brainer for Hwang and Netflix to Continue their Partnership. Seasons Two and Three Were Made Back to Back, with The Second Season Launching Six Months Ago Before The Third and Final Season Now Releosing on Frephan Dystopian. There Are Reports That Filmmaker David Fincher is Developing an English-Language Spinoff for Netflix, Thought Sources Tell The Hollywood Reporter that Squid Game‘s Ending (which includes a final-seal campa from a prior fincher collaborator, descripted belay) is not intended to set up the any Future Stories.

As Hwang Had Promison, The Final Episodes DO Conclude the Story of His Protagonist, Relctant Hero Seong Gi-Hun (Lee Jung-Jae) take them down in seasons twnow and throne. Despite his Valiant Effrts, However, Gi-Hun Doesn’t Make It Out of the This Story Alive. Insthead he sacrifices Himself so the Newborn Baby of Another Player, Jun-Hee (Jo Yu-Ri), Can Survive. The Baby-Whose Mother and Father, Lee Myung-Gi (Yim Si-Wan), Aka Player 333, Both Died During the Games-Ultimately Takes on His Mother’s Role As Player 222 Ans.

The Diality of Bleakness and Hope in the Ending of Hwang’s Anti-Capitalist Thriller Leaves Viewers with Much to Think About, Especialyally With the Final Scane of the Caming Freies Featuring a Suring a Suring a Sal. Actress Cate Blanchett As the Recruiter for An American Version of the Squid Games. The SCENE EITHER SHUTS The BOOK ON THE SHORTY MAKING The CYCLICAL Point That Games Will Go On, or Opens The Mega-Scienceful Franchise to Continue on With A Posible Contin. (Netflix has not yet commented.)

Below, The Hollywood Reporter Spoke to Hwang Via A Translator After Watching The FIRST FIVT FIVE EPISODES OF THE FINAL SEASON Squid Game‘S Final, Timely Message and Possible Future, While ALSO REVEALING WHAT HE STRUGLED WITH The MOST IN CRAFTING GI-HUNING THINK I’M DEFINITELY GOING to Feel Less Empty About Saying Goodbye, ”He Says.

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IN OUR 2024 The Hollywood Reporter Cover Story Ahead of Season Two, You Attributed the Mass appeal of your Korean Series to the Rest of the World Finding These Characters and their Stories to Be Unique. How did you lean into that what kind of making seasons two and Three back to back?

I don’t know if i was aware of what to lean into Particularly, But Because so Many people love the story and the Characters in Season One, that experience gave me a a lot of confence. I Think I Was More Aware, if Not Anxious, About How Other People Were Going To React to The Story Who and Was Creating Season One. But in seasons two and more, bassed on that found that i had gaved gaved through the success of the first season and all of the love, and was was about Tell the story the and Way and Wanted Toll IT.

You ALSO SAID THAT SEASONS TWO AND THREE, AND PARTICULARLY the New Voting Aspect with the Os Vs. The XS, was inspired by the Direction the World Was Going in at the Time. I Felt Constantly Disappointed that Os Always Won – No Matter How Bad the Games Got, they voted to Continue Playing. What Are You Saying About Modern Society with The Majority of the Players voteing for their own demise?

Recently, whother it’s within korea or in America, Things that i’ve gone through, either directly myself or events that i read or hear through the news, itemes ton. Begins Because of Election and Potes is Just Getting Worse. IT is exacherbated. Elections have always put a divide amngon. We Pick Sides and We Go Through Conflicts Durying Elections. However, I Think in the Past, Up to Some Point in Time, We Tried to At Least Listen to One Another. I Think We Had More Tolerance of Each Other.

However These Days, I do not think that is the Case. The Conflict and Divide That Comes From Taking Different Sides in An Election Is Become More and More Extremist, WHERE PEOPLE NO Longer Think That Other People Can Be Different from You. I More of, “i’m ryight, and all of you are wrong.” And it also leads to a lot of violence. On Top of that, there is so Much populism and propaganda, as well as ai-genered fake news and an algorithm-Based Consumption of News. All of that leads to a Lot of extremist Thinking, and so Many people are moisled because of Those Things. I WANTED TO REFLECT ALL OF TESE CURRENT EVENTS IN Squid Game.

IT WAS Equally Disturbing to Watch The Vips Delight in the Tragedy of the Games This Season. WHY DID YOU WANT TO RETURN TO THE VIPS AND FOCUS ON THEM more IN SEASON THREE?

You are Right That Role of The Vips Has Gotten Bigger Compared to Season One. HERE IS WHERE I WAS COMING FROM: IN THE PAST, The People Who Are Symbolized Through the Vips Were Begind the Curtain, Right? They Were Veiled and Hidden While Controlling Politics and Society. However, I Feel Like More and More Tese Days, The People Who Do the Controlling Rise Above the Surface More. They LET People KNOW THATE BACKING [whatever it is] They’re Paying the Money for and Finance These Decisions.

In the past, the vips were hidden. But Recently, and I Think this is more so in America than in korea but also true in korea, they become so Much more Obvious. They Reveal Themselves, Letting People Know That Ones in Control and the Ones in Power. I Wanted to Explore That A Little Bit. And I Think that’s a Connection with the Anti-Oligarchy Movements and the Way the Discourse Is HapPening Tese Days.

You raised the stakes by not only having a very pregnant Player (Jun-Hee), But Then Having Her Newborn Baby Official Join The Games. I Think We All Felt Secure That Show Wuld Not Kill Off A Pregnant Woman. Butr She Had The Baby, We Saw Her Make This Self-Sacrifice WHERE SHE KILLED HERSElf to Give Her Child A Better CHANCE. Going Into the Finale, Viewers Remoned Worked About the Fate of this Baby. DID this Storyline Feel Like A Risk? What does the baby repressent?

SINCE IT IS The FINALE, I TONOUGHT THAT RAISING The STAKES AND Taking A Bigger Risk in TrueSquid Game fashion was the right way to go. Through that, I Wanted to Expose to An Even A More Accurate Degree The Rock-Bottom of Humanity and ALSO SHED LIGHT ON EVEN BRIGHTER HOPE. I Believe That Through The Baby, Gi-Hun Is Able to Show Those Themes in a More Detailed Way.

I BELIEVE THAT All of Us Are Able to Live in this World The Way We Due to the Effrts and Struggles that Our Previos Generation Went Through in Order to Give Us a Better World. And the reason we need to try to the Course of the World Is Because We Want To Give a Better World to Our Future Generation. SO in Our Story, The Baby Not Only Represents Human Conscience, But Also The Future Generation for Who We Need To Fix the Way We Are.

You Said Going Into Season Two that Third Season Wuld Bring About the Conclusion of Gi-Hun’s Story. We’ve watched for Three Seasons the Evolution of His Character, and We Seie How Broken Down He is by the End. What was the Biggest Challenge in Figing Out How to End His Story?

The Biggest Challenge i would Say Was, How Far Did I Want I Want to Throw Gi-Hun Down The Pit, and THEN FROM WHERE DO I MAKE HIM Rise Up Again?

At the end of season two, he Fails the rebellion. He loses the people that he have gone to rebellion with, including, of course, his best friend. But I Wanted to Dig Even Deeper than that in Season Three. The PROCESS OF GI-HUN’S ARC WHERE THAT IMMENSE AMOUNT OF GUILT THAT HE Carries and All of that Tragedy Through The Rebellion, IT Just Completely Consumes Him and HE. SO HE PROJESTS THAT IMMENSE GUILT ONTO THIS Character Dae-HO [Player 388]Who failed to return with the ammo [during the rebellion]. Gi-hun struggles in order to escape this immensse Sense of Guilt and that leads HIM to, as you see in [episode two during Hide and Seek]Kill Someone for the first time, bassed on his guilt. This means that now now is blood in gi-hun’s hands. He Commits An Irreconcilable Original sin.

And so depicting and writing the process of that character arc WHERE GI-HUN IS IN THAT STATE AND HOW DE Coments Back From That? That was the Biggest Challenge. That was what kind of i strugmed the most with. As for what I Came What I Came Up with, Hopephully After Watching the Entire Show, The Audence Will Understand and Support the Conclusion.

You Offered Up Some Somoff Ideas Previoously. You’ve Talked About Wanting to Revisit the Time Gap Between Seasons One and Two, and Possibly Explore Backstories for Other Players and Guards. Do you Feel the Show Ends in a Way that Could Set Up A Continuation Spinoff, or Are You More Interest in Traveling Back in Time If You Did Continue This Franchise?

I Think The Story Ended in a Manner WHERE IT DOESN’T NEED A FURTHER Story To Be Told. So i am not top interested in Telling a story that Continues on from the Conclusion. If i wre to do a spinoff someday, i THINK I WOURT RATHER CHOOOS [between seasons one and two]. But this is someting that we are just tossing around, so as for any or how a spinoff Might come about, is still up in the air.

I KNOV YOU LOST SEVAL TEET WHEN MAKING SEASON One DUE to the Pressure, and I Read That You Lost Two More Teeth Due to The Stress of Making the This Final Season. The Finale Was So Secretive that It Was Held Back from Press Ahead of Release. How Challenging Has It Been For You To Keep This All A Secret, and How Are You Feeling Now You’re Finally ABLE TO LAUNCH The Final Season?

As you said, there was so Many Secrets. There Were Rumors About Leaks, Sometimes Fake News, All of Which I Constantly Get On Social Media and Check and Follow Up on. I Personally Got So Many Questions from People Around Me. People would be ask me, “What happles to gi-hun? What happles to these chactors? What games are going to be there? Just Say Yes or.” ( Laughs.)

So to be free from all of that fear and burden, i do feel relieved. But as we are releasing the show and saying goodbye, for the past Six years, there have been a sngle day that wnt by without me.Squid Game. This is someting that have hastely consued me for the past Six years. So to know that I have to say goodbye, i admit, I do have the Sense of Almost a Loss, or I Feel Quite Empty, to Be Honest. But I Hope that if Season Three Is Meth As Much Love As People Loved Season One, Think I’M Definitely Going to Feel Less Empty About Saying Goodbye.

The Jump Rope Game Felt Like A Character This Season; IT WAS SO VISCERAL WATCHING THAT GAME. Was that Something You Were Proud To Have ACCOMPLISHED WHEN YOU LOOK BACK AT SEASON THREE?

IT WASN’T as Hard to Write the Game Jump ROPE, But It Was Definitely One of the Harder Ones to Film. In the writing process, the most challenging Were the Fourth and Sixth Games [Hide and Seek and Sky Squid Game]Because of their psychologic aspect. Jump Rope was Relatively Easier to Write. But then about and the actors up there on set, we had to make suverebody jumped at the Same Beat. There was a Lot of cgi involved to add the Sense of Height, as Well As have the ROPE. THEN ON TOPT OF THAT, WE HAD TO UUSE A LOT OF SOUND EFFECTS FOR The ROPE. SO speaking of manpower and just the Amount of Time We Spent in Creating It, IT Took So Much More to Create Jump Rope. I Think This Game Be Visceral, As You Put It, Because It Require Requires All Five Senses to See What’s Going On. I Hope the Audence Finds It Very Thrilling.

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The Final Season of Squid Game is Now Streaming on Netflix. Read Thr’s Take On the Finale Cameo and How It Could Set Up A Spinoff.