Initially, Squid Game was created as filler for Netflix. A simple extra for September that would wrap around series like Midnight Mass, season 3 of Sex Education, or the movie Kate. However, all eyes were fixed, for months and almost permanently, on a Korean series in the Battle Royale style that had its own tone, unique setting, and practically forced viewers to binge-watch the episodes like popcorn. It should have ended there, in 2021. However, four years later, Netflix wants to milk the cow dry… demonstrating that it has not understood its own series at all.
The Squid Franchise
The premise of Squid Game was simple yet powerful, and it surprised in an ultra-capitalist service like Netflix: a socio-political commentary on class struggle, to what extent the powerful are willing to play with the most humble people for their own amusement and how, individually, if you want to reach the top from nothing, you won’t do it without getting your hands dirty with blood. The result was 9 fantastic episodes that ended with a small cliffhanger just in case luck struck.
It sounded, and in what a way. The streamer soon confirmed that there would be one more season (divided into two parts) and rushed to prepare his reality show, the exact proof that he had understood absolutely nothing of the cruelty of the original script, confusing it with a macabre Humor Amarillo or a Grand Prix filled with blood. Along the way, in the reality show, they showed people who needed the money ($4.56 million, the third largest prize given in a program of this type, only behind Beast Games and Factor X), commodifying misery and becoming, probably without realizing it, everything that Squid Game criticized.
Of course, and seeing that it continued to yield dividends, they didn’t stop there and created a video game where players could compete against each other and that could be downloaded for free from the Netflix app. The latest we have heard is that the one and only David Fincher will direct the American version of Squid Game, because we need to stretch the gum as much as it can give before it breaks. The director is interesting, for sure, and I’m sure he will find a curious angle, but beyond the money… Is there no one within the company who sees why continuing with the franchise is a terrible idea?
Red franchise, green franchise
We know, because it has been said actively and passively, that there will not be a season 4 of Squid Game and that, in fact, its creator directed the last two looking for the amounts of money that he did not earn making the first one, almost reluctantly (frankly, it shows). But the viewer numbers continue to be counted in millions, so, obviously, one must dive in headfirst.
Hwang Dong-hyuk, the person who created the idea and the series itself, has also given ideas for future spin-offs, although, frankly, they don’t sound that interesting. As he stated to Entertainment Weekly, “I have the idea for a spin-off during the three years between season 1 and 2, when Gi-hun is looking for the recruiters. There are three years and maybe it could show what they were doing during that period, not in the game area, but their life outside”. The non-game of the non-squid.
It is surprising that an anti-capitalist series has been ultra-capitalized, but I suppose it is a sign of the times. A success cannot just stay there; it must be expanded in one way or another until it runs out and becomes more of a chore than anything else. What happens with a series like Stranger Things – which will happen – is the symbol of the times. But what happens with Squid Game is, directly, having a diamond in hand, making a plastic copy and trying to convince the rest of the world that it is still valuable. But it is hard not to see that, like in the story of the emperor, Netflix is naked and no one has dared to tell them.
