Netflix’s “Squid Game” is the dystopian hit that nobody wanted, until everyone else did

Now, “Squid Game,” which debuted on September 17th, is a worldwide phenomenon. TikTok videos of people reproducing children’s games have gone viral, as online retailers rush to sell “Squid Game” Halloween costumes. The show reached number 1 in more than 90 countries, including the United States, a surprise even to Netflix executives.

By all accounts, the Korean survival drama is on track to surpass Netflix’s current record holders – “Bridgerton” and “Lupine” – in terms of total volume of hours watched and number of subscribers who listened. the show for at least two minutes, said Minyoung Kim, who oversees the company’s creative activities in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding India.

“It’s still an upward trend,” Ms. Kim said. “We’ve never seen anything as fast and aggressive as ‘Squid Game’. “

Despite its sudden success, “Squid Game” represents an award for Netflix’s multi-year gamble on South Korean content. The U.S. streaming giant invested around $ 700 million in Korean movies and TV shows from 2015 to 2020, according to the company. This year alone, Netflix plans to spend half a billion dollars.

This compares to the roughly $ 400 million allocated to Indian content in 2019 and 2020, and the roughly $ 17 billion Netflix is ​​spending on content globally this year.

The popularity of “Squid Game” comes as Netflix faces unprecedented competition, with rival streaming services looking for original hits that can catch the eye on every continent to distinguish their offerings.

The creator of “Squid Game”, Hwang Dong-hyuk, came up with the idea for the series more than ten years ago, while living with his mother and grandmother. He had to stop writing the script at some point: he was forced to sell his laptop for $ 675 for cash.

Back then, investors and potential actors bristled at the brutal killings and the implausibility of individuals competing to the death for money. But two years ago, Netflix thought the class struggles depicted in “Squid Game” spoke to reality.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit the global economy, it exacerbated the disparity between the rich and the poor, said Mr Hwang, 50. Even vaccine deployments vary widely depending on whether a country is rich or not, he said.

“The world has changed,” Hwang said. “All of these points made the story very realistic for people compared to ten years ago.”

Buzz builds quickly. Netflix’s trailer for “Squid Game” on YouTube has already racked up over 14 million views, more than double that of “Bridgerton” or “Lupine”.

South Koreans celebrated the milestone of “Squid Game” becoming the country’s first show to reach Netflix’s # 1 spot in the US and globally. Local media called it the next Oscar-winning movie “Parasite.” References to the show even entered the race for presidential elections in South Korea, with some candidates making parody posters or challenging each other in “Squid Game” -type competitions.

“I was surprised to hear that the show performed so well outside of Korea and thought that the popularity of K-pop may have attracted more people interested in Korean content,” he said. said Kwon Se-un, 27, a cafe worker. “The ruthless murders drew attention and the range of different characters made it interesting.”

“Squid Game” has undergone some preparations to become a global mega-bit. With a potential language barrier, Netflix has focused on visuals, outfitting competitors with green tracksuits and building colorful sets that resemble children’s playgrounds. Some of the rules of traditional Korean games have been simplified or changed.

Many Americans also like to watch foreign shows with English dubbing, rather than subtitles, a choice that Netflix’s algorithms can automatically select for users based on their past viewing.

Korean dramas have long had a large fan base across Asia and have been seen in Europe, Latin America and the United States via other streaming services such as Viki Inc. and the late DramaFever Corp. But these rivals haven’t produced much big-budget, original content, or bragging about the streaming reach of Netflix, which began its efforts in South Korea in 2016.

Since then, Netflix has released around 80 Korean movies and series, and viewing of K-dramas in the United States has doubled in the past two years, Netflix said.

Previous Korean hits, available on Netflix and elsewhere, typically focus on boy-girl romance or Cinderella-style stories of the elite villains – and often blend in with both. Some of Netflix’s previous hits K-drama followed this playbook, including “Crash Landing on You,” a 2019 show in which a South Korean heiress lands in North Korea in a paragliding accident.

But more recent shows have started to break the mold, gaining audiences larger than K-drama die-hards. For example, “Sweet Home,” an apocalyptic thriller series released last year, reached No. 3 on Netflix in the United States.

About 95% of “Squid Game” viewers are outside of South Korea. It has been captioned in 31 languages ​​and dubbed in 13, Netflix said.

Netflix’s Ms. Kim said the series, while very Korean, has a more universal appeal because it asks a simple moral question: “Who are we? “

“We are not horses, we are all humans,” she said. “That’s the question the show really wants to ask you.”

Brittany Chang, a 22-year-old university student in Singapore, had never watched a Korean drama before, but encouraged by friends – and Netflix’s suggestions – she watched the trailer and wondered why the desperate contestants were turning up. are turned against each other. “Squid Game” reminded him of “The Hunger Games,” another brutal survival story.

“I watched the whole series in one sitting,” she said.

“Squid Game” is an outsider story, relatable to struggling people, that resonates with a younger audience, much like how K-pop group BTS became a voice for millennials, said Suk- Young Kim, Head of Theater and Performance Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“Korea is no longer an exotic site where only a certain dedicated fandom culture exists,” said Professor Kim, who has written a book on South Korea’s music industry. “It is a major cultural center with increasing importance in Hollywood and on the Billboard charts.”

Write to Dasl Yoon at [email protected] and Timothy W. Martin at [email protected]