Netflix fans do not have long left to wait for a brand new season of Squid Game: The Challenge.
456 players will take part in Squid Game: The Challenge season two competing for a huge £4.56 million prize. (Image: NETFLIX)
Squid Game fans have just two days left until a brand new season of a high stakes reality game returns to Netflix screens.
Once again, 456 players will take on a series of brutal games in the hopes of winning a staggering $4.56 million cash prize for season two of Squid Game: The Challenge.
The hit Netflix reality show, based on the popular Korean thriller Squid Game, was a huge success when it first hit screens back in 2023. Another series was announced earlier this year, with it now being just days away.
Unlike the original phenomenon where players are killed if they lose, there will still be devastating impacts as contestant will miss out on winning the life-changing amount of money. Despite the full cast remaining under wraps, Netflix has already announced some huge names, including familiar faces from Selling Sunset and Big Brother.
Episode release schedule explained
Squid Game: The Challenge season 2 will return to screens on November 4. However, not all episodes will be released straight away.
Instead, fans will have to wait a week for different instalments for the three week run.
On November 4, fans will be treated to four episodes as a group of brand new players are introduced to the game.
November 11 will then see the next three episodes aired.
But fans will have to wait until November 18 for the remaining episodes in the huge season finale.
Squid Game The Challenge games
With subtle nods to various games, executive producer Nicola Brown told Tudum: “Those little Easter eggs are important for both the viewers at home and the players.
“The first thing they do when they walk into the dorm is look at the walls and try to figure out what the new games might be.”
Here are some games fans can look forward to:
The count – a brand new game that will determine how the competition continues
Six-Legged Pentathlon – teams race head to head, with legs tied together with mini games thrown in
Catch – a brand new game which games designer Ben Norman teases is not as simple as it sounds
Mingle – players on a carousel must gather in groups consisting of a number called out and walk into an adjoining room
Marbles – with the same rules as season 1 players again partner up and given a bag of marbles and 30 minutes
Slides and Ladders – a new game that turns the familiar board game into something high stakes and “oversized”
Circle of Trust – blindfolded at desks in a circle, the player who received a gift box must guess who gave it to them
Finale game – Remains a mystery for now
Is there a season 3?
With season 2 just days away, Netflix has already geared up for another season of the hit reality show. Anyone wishing to take part can apply online for a chance to compete.
However, according to Tudum, there is another way to get on the show. Tudum hints: “Player recruitment for Season 3 is also now taking place through Squid Game: The Experience inboth New York and London.
“Winners at the immersive, IRL experience will receive priority in the casting process, though this does not guarantee they will be selected to take part in Season 3.”
Squid Game: The Challenge season 2 premieres Tuesday, November 4 on Netflix.
Thanks to popular shows like “Squid Game,” plus price hikes and growing advertising revenues, Netflix on Thursday reported strong growth in the second quarter, beating analysts’ expectations.
The Los Gatos-based streamer’s revenue rose 16% to $11.1 billion, while the company’s net income increased 46% to $3.1 billion compared to a year earlier. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected about $11 billion in revenue and $3 billion in profit.
Wall Street analysts have long deemed Netflix the winner of the streaming wars. The company no longer gives quarterly updates on how many customers it has, last revealing it had more than 301 million subscribers in 2024. But there’s still pressure on Netflix to continue to show financial growth, as the company aims to attract more advertising dollars and subscribers around the world.
Many analysts believe that Netflix’s future sales boost will come from its advertising business, which began in November 2022. The streamer is expected to generate $2.07 billion in ad revenue this year in the United States, which is estimated to climb to nearly $3 billion in 2027, according to research firm Emarketer.
“They’re seeing some substantial revenue and they are also getting a lot of people to sign up or switch to the ad supported tier,” said Paul Verna, a principal analyst at Emarketer.
Netflix said it expects total revenue in to grow 17% in the third quarter. The company increased its full-year 2025 revenue forecast, estimating that it will generate $44.8 billion to $45.2 billion. That’s up from the range of $43.5 billion to $44.5 billion that it previously projected.
In May, Netflix said its cheaper plan with ads reaches more than 94 million monthly active users, indicating that its version with commercials is gaining traction as other services follow a similar strategy.
“We continue to make progress building our ads business and still expect to roughly double ads revenue in 2025,” Netflix said in its letter to shareholders.
Earlier this year Netflix raised prices on most of its subscription plans in the U.S. Its cheapest plan with ads went up $1 to $7.99 a month. Netflix said the response to its recent price adjustments has been “broadly in line with our expectations.”
Netflix continues to face competition from other streaming services globally and entertainment companies like YouTube and TikTok that also take up significant amount of watch time among consumers.
During the second quarter, Netflix released popular programs including Korean animated film “KPop Demon Hunters,” drama “Sirens” and the third season of “Squid Game.”
“Squid Game’s” third season, which premiered late last month, was the most watched series in 93 countries during its debut week and broke a record for the most views for a show in its first three days on Netflix, a boon for a streaming service that thrives on capturing the attention of audiences worldwide by releasing must-watch programs.
“These are positive initiatives and they’re the quality of the content that shows the uniqueness of it,” said Melissa Otto, head of research at S&P Global Visible Alpha, on shows like “Squid Game” Season 3. “These are all things that pull the users in and make them want to subscribe to Netflix or watch Netflix content.”
Netflix also has received critical acclaim for its programming, noting it has received 120 Primetime Emmy nominations for shows including the limited series drama “Adolescence” and comedy-drama series “Nobody Wants This.”
Netflix stock closed at $1,274.17 on Thursday, up about 2%.
SEOUL — The third and final season of Netflix’s “Squid Game” broke viewership records on the streaming platform following its release on June 27, marking a fitting close for what has arguably been the most successful South Korean TV series in history.
Although reviews have been mixed, Season 3 recorded more than 60 million views in the first three days and topped leaderboards in all 93 countries, making it Netflix’s biggest launch to date.
“Squid Game” has been transformative for South Korea, with much of the domestic reaction focused not on plot but on the prestige it has brought to the country. In Seoul, fans celebrated with a parade to commemorate the show’s end, shutting down major roads to make way for a marching band and parade floats of characters from the show.
In one section of the procession, a phalanx of the show’s masked guards, dressed in their trademark pink uniforms, carried neon-lit versions of the coffins that appear on the show to carry away the losers of the survival game. They were joined by actors playing the contestants, who lurched along wearing expressions of exaggerated horror, as though the cruel stakes of the game had just been revealed to them.
At the fan event that capped off the evening, series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk thanked the show’s viewers and shared the bittersweetness of it all being over.
“I gave my everything to this project, so the thought of it all ending does make me a bit sad,” he said. “But at the same time, I lived with such a heavy weight on my shoulders for so long that it feels freeing to put that all down.”
Despite the overnight global fame “Squid Game” brought him (it’s Netflix’s most-watched series of all time), Hwang has spoken extensively about the physical and mental toil of creating the show.
Visitors take photos near a model of the doll named “Younghee” that’s featured in Netflix’s series “Squid Game,” displayed at the Olympic park in Seoul in October 2021.
(Lee Jin-man / Associated Press)
He unsuccessfully shopped the show around for a decade until Netflix picked up the first season in 2019, paying the director just “enough to put food on the table” — while claiming all of the show’s intellectual property rights. During production for the first season, which was released in 2021, Hwang lost several teeth from stress.
A gateway into Korean content for many around the world, “Squid Game” show served to spotlight previously lesser-known aspects of South Korean culture, bringing inventions like dalgona coffee — made with a traditional Korean candy that was featured in the show — to places such as Los Angeles and New York.
The show also cleared a path for the global success of other South Korean series, accelerating a golden age of “Hallyu” (the Korean wave) that has boosted tourism and exports of food and cosmetics, as well as international interest in learning Korean.
But alongside its worldly successes, the show also provoked conversations about socioeconomic inequality in South Korean society, such as the prevalence of debt, which looms in the backstories of several characters.
A few years ago, President Lee Jae-myung, a longtime proponent of debt relief, said, “‘Squid Game’ reveals the grim realities of our society. A playground in which participants stake their lives in order to pay off their debt is more than competition — it is an arena in which you are fighting to survive.”
In 2022, the show made history as the first non-English-language TV series and the first Korean series to win a Screen Actors Guild Award, taking home three in total. It also won six Emmy Awards. That same year, the city of L.A. designated Sept. 17 — the series’ release date — as “Squid Game Day.“
Although Hwang has said in media interviews that he is done with the “Squid Game” franchise, the Season 3 finale — which features Cate Blanchett in a cameo as a recruiter for the games that are the show’s namesake — has revived rumors that filmmaker David Fincher may pick it up for an English-language spinoff in the future.
While saying he had initially written a more conventional happy ending, Hwang has described “Squid Game’s” final season as a sobering last stroke to its unsparing portrait of cutthroat capitalism.
“I wanted to focus in Season 3 on how in this world, where incessant greed is always fueled, it’s like a jungle — the strong eating the weak, where people climb higher by stepping on other people’s heads,” he told The Times’ Michael Ordoña last month.
“Coming into Season 3, because the economic system has failed us, politics have failed us, it seems like we have no hope,” he added. “What hope do we have as a human race when we can no longer control our own greed? I wanted to explore that. And in particular, I wanted to [pose] that question to myself.”
The message was loud and clear when Netflix‘s Korean thriller “Squid Game” arrived in 2021. Imagining wealth and class disparity at the heart of a high-stakes competition, it featured cash-strapped contestants playing a series of children’s games to the death while uber-wealthy spectators bet on their odds of survival. The show’s masked elites watched the carnage from a luxe, concealed spectator box, chomping on cigars and chortling as player after player met a gruesome death. The Korean-language show became the streamer’s most watched series ever.
Comeuppance for the hideously affluent seemed imminent and likely at the hands of protagonist Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae). The winner of Season 1’s “Squid Game” deserved vengeance after surviving a series of horrific scenarios — a hopscotch-type match played on a fragile glass bridge above a deadly chasm, a red light-green light contest where players who moved at the wrong time were “eliminated” by machine gun fire. He watched as good people were killed by pink guards, other contestants and their own stupid actions.
But no. The last six “Squid Game” episodes, now streaming on Netflix, did something entirely unsatisfying. They veered from the prospect of timely, eat-the-rich vengeance porn to unflattering commentary about the rest of us, the other 99% who aren’t Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos. What did we ever do to deserve a lethal game of double dutch with two giant mechanical children swinging a 10-ton metal rod in place of a jump rope? A lot, apparently.
“Squid Game” shows that under the right circumstances, regular folks are just as greedy and morally corrupt as the obscenely prosperous, no matter if their money problems stem from unforeseen medical bills, wanton gambling or generational poverty. Press the little guy or gal hard enough and they’re just as ruthless as the mogul that’s suppressing them.
The VIPs in “Squid Game” Season 3, who watch as the contestants trample one another.
(Dong-won Han / NohJu Han / Netflix)
Season 3 picks up exactly where 2 left off. Gi-hun, who’d found his way back in the clandestine gaming complex (situated inside a mountain on a remote island), is Player 456 again among a new round of contestants. He’d planned to infiltrate the operation from inside, staging a coup against the VIPs and Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) who run the games. But now it’s clear he’s failed. He’s cornered by guards, the players who fought alongside him are dead, and he’s thrown back in with the remaining players, many of whom survived because they’re the most craven of the group.
Free and fair elections are at the heart of every democracy, or so “Squid Game” reminds us each time the bedraggled players are asked for their vote regarding the next round: Continue to compete and thin the herd for a larger reward or stop and split their winnings with their fellow contestants? Majority rules, and each time the group opt to sacrifice their lives — and everyone else’s — in pursuit of money. Series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk has spoken about his dwindling faith in humanity as it relates to his concerns about South Korea’s democracy, and you’ll hear him loud and clear in Season 3: Voting is power, but look what happens when the population increasingly puts its own self-interest above that of the greater good. It’s a scenario that should be recognizable to Americans by now.
“Squid Game” Season 3 takes that idea to the extreme, and quite fearlessly, Hwang puts the series to bed without punishing the rich. Instead he dares to lay bare a truth that’s become all too apparent of late: Wealth wins over morality and money trumps accountability. Nice guys not only finish last, they wind up pulverized like everyone else below a certain tax bracket, no matter their dedication toward humanity.
The Korean show’s run has ended, but not before a finale that alludes to a Hollywood sequel. The episode, set in Los Angeles, shows a familiar scene. A down-and-out man is approached by a mysterious, well-dressed figure who uses a simple kid’s game to test his want of money against his tolerance for pain and humiliation.
Those who’ve watched “Squid Game” will recognize it as the beginning of Gi-hun’s journey, which ended with a sliver of redemption in an abyss of darkness. The mysterious figure appears to be a recruiter for a new, English-language “Squid Game.” She’s played by an A-list celebrity — Cate Blanchett — operating in a city renowned for its self-involvement and privilege. “Squid Game” has a whole new playing field.
This article contains many spoilers for Season 3 of Netflix’s “Squid Game.”
“Squid Game” is a twisty, twisted thriller, with ordinary, financially stressed people playing children’s games to the death for the amusement of the hidden wealthy. Beneath that surface, creator, writer and director Hwang Dong-hyuk has been embedding sociopolitical commentary amid the shock and awe of protagonist Gi-hun’s (Lee Jung-jae) personal roller-coaster ride; the characters’ desperation as the saga ends forces those messages to poke through the slick, candy-colored exterior.
“It was a result of elevation of the themes and stories,” said Hwang of those ideas becoming more clearly voiced. They “became more upfront and intense just as a natural course of the story unfolding.”
The global phenomenon, still Netflix’s most-watched non-English show ever (its first two seasons are No. 1 and 2 on the streamer’s all-time list, with nearly 600 million views to date, according to Netflix), ends on its own terms with the release of its third and final season Friday. And what an arc everyman Gi-hun will have completed. How better to represent Hwang’s themes of end-stage, winners-and-losers capitalism, with its warping, destructive power, and how the ill-intentioned can exploit democracy’s flaws, than to depict an ordinary person buffeted by the unseen hand of pain for profit?
“You can say this is a story of those who have become losers of the game, and also those of us who are shaken to our core because of the chaotic political landscape,” said Hwang, who with Lee, spoke via an interpreter on a video call earlier this month from New York. “I wanted to focus in Season 3 on how in this world, where incessant greed is always fueled, it’s like a jungle — the strong eating the weak, where people climb higher by stepping on other people’s heads.”
Lee Jung-jae as Seong Gi-hun in final season of Netflix’s “Squid Game.”
(No Ju-han / Netflix)
Gi-hun’s hands become bloodied in the competition in Season 3, Hwang said. “That’s the first time he kills someone [in the games]. This person who symbolized goodness, the original sin is now on him because of what society has done to him,” he said. “How does he pick himself up from that? That’s the heart of Season 3. In a way, we’re all put in this situation due to the capitalist society and chaotic political situation. Gi-hun symbolizes what all of us go through these days.”
When we meet him in Season 1, Gi-hun is down and out, an inveterate gambler. Through Season 1’s horrific gantlet of murderous kids’ games, his exterior is scraped away with a rusty edge until all that’s left is a flawed but good man. Gi-hun is someone who sees what he believes with clarity, while becoming the suddenly rich champion of the games.
But after he reaches that peak, Season 2 plunges him back down the roller coaster as he becomes obsessed with vengeance against the elite voyeurs who fund the game and the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), who oversees it. Righteous anger carries Gi-hun to the brink of his goal of destroying the games, only to see it all brutally dashed. Season 3 finds him a broken man, near catatonic with guilt. Without him to guide the less bloodthirsty players, the games will enter a fearsome phase of all-out mayhem, from which unexpectedly emerges a chance at redemption for the battered protagonist.
“All of those changes within Gi-hun are depicted in such minute detail” in Hwang’s writing, said Lee, “so nuanced and with so many layers. You’ll see Gi-hun have a change of heart. Sometimes his beliefs will be shaken. But despite all of that, he will continue to struggle to find hope and his will.
“All of those changes within Gi-hun are depicted in such minute detail, so nuanced and with so many layers,” Lee Jung-jae said of his character and Hwang Dong-hyuk’s writing.
(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)
“All I can say is, I’m a very lucky man. You don’t come by characters like Gi-hun every day. It’s been a true honor,” he adds.
Lee’s public appearances in support of “Squid Game” have provided an almost comic contrast with Gi-hun. He’s movie-star handsome, elegant, always sharply dressed. On the show, especially as Gi-hun deteriorates in Season 3, he’s wrecked.
“Jung-jae went on this extremely harsh diet for over a year so he could really portray, externally, the pain and the brokenness, to really express how famished and barren he is, both mentally and physically,” Hwang said.
Gi-hun isn’t the only person the games destroy. Another hallmark of the show is its deft development of characters into fan favorites, coupled with its “Game of Thrones”-like willingness to unceremoniously kill them. Viewers will be sharpening their pitchforks when trans commando Hyun-ju (Park Sung-hoon), a.k.a. Player 120, dies ignominiously in Season 3. Hwang is already braced for the backlash.
“It’s not me who did it! It was 333,” he exclaimed, blaming the murderer.
Hwang said when he watched the first assembly edit of that death, “I wrote and directed and everything, I knew it’s coming, but it was still painful. It was like, ‘Oh, come on, come on.’ ”
“For some characters, I would see them go and I’d feel really sad … I would think, ‘Director Hwang is such a cruel man,’” Lee said.
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1.Hyun-ju (Park Sung-hoon) in Season 3 of “Squid Game.” “I wrote and directed and everything, I knew it’s coming, but it was still painful,” Hwang Dong-hyuk said.2.Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri), a pregnant contestant in the games, was another casualty.(No Ju-han / Netflix)
When Hwang asks what death in particular made him feel that way, Lee doesn’t hesitate to cite another beloved character, pregnant contestant Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri), calling that Season 3 death “heartbreaking.”
Lee’s sensitive, evolving turn as Gi-hun — deeply human amid the madness, paranoia and murder set in bright green and pink surroundings — has made the character the ideal litmus test for Hwang’s critique of an economic system designed to produce titanic winners and losers who face annihilation. He’s a living symbol of Hwang’s themes.
“I feel like Director Hwang is truly an artist,” Lee said. “I mean something akin to a concept artist. Because when he creates his visuals, not only are they extremely pleasing to the eye; he focuses on the meaning behind them. He [stacks] images on top of one another, almost as if building a Lego castle. Each little block has meaning: each dialogue, each editing flow and [each use of] the musical score.”
As Season 3 reaches a boil, some of Hwang’s symbolism becomes less subtle. In one game, contestants clutch keys suspiciously resembling crucifixes as one player leads others with fervor, for better or worse. One character’s moment of triumph occurs before a painted rainbow (rainbow flags are also associated with the LGBTQ+ community in Korea). And Hwang’s nuanced critique of democracy comes to the fore.
“I feel like Director Hwang is truly an artist,” said Lee Jung-jae of the show’s creator. “I mean something akin to a concept artist. Because when he creates his visuals, not only are they extremely pleasing to the eye; he focuses on the meaning behind them.
(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)
Unlike Season 1, in which contestants had one chance to vote to end the games, in Seasons 2 and 3, votes are taken after each contest; as more players die, the pot swells larger and larger. With only a score or so of participants left, a vote to quit means all would leave alive, and with substantial cash. Voting to continue means, explicitly, they will kill to become obscenely wealthy.
“In the past, at the time of elections, despite our differences, we all came together; there was more tolerance through the process of conflict,” Hwang said. “I don’t think that is anymore the case. Rather, elections [have only driven] societies into greater divides. I wanted to explore those themes in Seasons 2 and 3; that’s why I included the voting in each round.”
Hwang loudly calls out the flaw of democracy that allows the barest of majorities to subject all to nightmarish policies — even more nightmarish for those who voted against them. The ruthless winners keep reminding the others in Season 3 it was a “free and democratic vote.”
“That is not to say that I have a different answer,” he said. “I wanted to raise the question because I believe it is time for us to try to find the answer. In Season 1, I looked at the flaws of the economic system that creates so many losers due to this unlimited competition. In Season 2, I depicted the failure of the political system.
“Coming into Season 3, because the economic system has failed us, politics have failed us, it seems like we have no hope,” Hwang added. “What hope do we have as a human race when we can no longer control our own greed? I wanted to explore that. And in particular, I wanted to [pose] that question to myself.”
And what has he found? Does he still believe in humanity?
“Well, I don’t have the answer,” Hwang said. “But I have to admit, honestly, I think I’ve become more cynical, working on ‘Squid Game.’”
TV Columnist Sara Wallis reviews Squid Game 3, as TV’s most stressful show returns to Netflix today for its third and final season…
08:00, 27 Jun 2025Updated 08:06, 27 Jun 2025
The players mourn over another pink-bowed coffin in Squid Game 3
*Warning: Some plot reveals, no major spoilers*
Surely the most stressful TV experience of all time, dystopian horror-show Squid Game is back today for its third and final flourish – and you won’t want to miss it. The South Korean mega hit, which will send your blood pressure soaring within minutes, somehow manages to become even more messed up and sinister than before. Millions of viewers across the globe have been hooked by the plot so far, which sees desperate, broke ‘losers’ compete in a series of children’s games for quick cash. What they don’t realise until it’s too late is that there’s a violent twist. Win these menacing games, win millions. Lose and get shot in the head by a soldier in a mask and red jumpsuit. The fewer players left, the more money for each one. As you can imagine, they all become completely unhinged and begin to turn on each other. It’s thrilling, popcorn-eating TV.
Lee Byung-hun as Front man in Squid Game 3
After season one became a cultural phenomenon, Director Hwang Dong-Hyuk admitted he was stressed out (his teeth fell out) as he faced the difficult Second Album Syndrome, with expectations through the roof. Three years later, season two saw our anti-hero Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), aka winning Player 456, re-enter the game with the intention of bringing down the bad guys.
By the end he was leading a rebellion, hoping to take them down from within. But the evil Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) always seemed to be one step ahead. It ended on a brutal cliffhanger, with Gi-hun witnessing the death of his friend at the hands of the Front Man, who was disguised as Player 001.
We’ve only had to wait six months this time for these final six, nail-biting episodes. Picking up exactly where we left off, the first episode is titled Keys and Knives, which sets us up for the first new game. It’s hide and seek, but no one’s laughing. Some players get keys, some get knives, you can guess the rest. As ever, the gigantic set-pieces, made to make the players feel small like children, are visually stunning and creative. The stage is set, classical music blares out, shrill voices sing-song the instructions, and we watch as the players try to outrun death at every turn.
Lee Jung-jae as Gi-hun, aka Player 456(Image: (Image: NETFLIX))
This season gives the actual games more airtime, meaning the edge-of-seat moments are longer, making everything more disturbing. Episode two, The Starry Night, is entirely one game played out, where bonds are tested, dynamics shift and you can expect plenty of shock-horror moments. Next another frantic childhood game results in a bloodbath, before ultimately the remaining players reach the grand finale, called Sky Squid Game.
Watching the whole thing on screens are the VIPs, a group of wealthy, masked foreigners (American and British accents among them), who all place bets, moving little numbered chess pieces, while smoking and drinking. Though this part is no doubt supposed to be a caricature of a corrupt society, it’s all so cartoony with terrible acting that it jars with the excellence of the main scenes.
If you can get over groaning at these hammed-up villains, you will at least appreciate the social commentary on class, capitalism and immorality. While they enjoy this gladiator-style bloodsport as entertainment, as the players themselves become more deranged by greed, it holds up a mirror to the worst of humanity. By the time we reach the final episode, titled Humans Are…, we have also become numb to the violence. Seasons two and three could never have quite the same impact as season one. However, with the new games designed to cause even more division among the players than before, and a callous, unguessable twist early on that changes the whole dynamic, Squid Game becomes monstrous in a different way.
Park Gyu-young as Kang No-eul, a soldier with a plan(Image: Noh Ju-han / Netflix)
Watch out for drama outside of the main arena, as police officer Jun-ho (Wi Ha-jun) mounts a desperate search for the island, knowing his brother is the Front Man. What he doesn’t realise is that his plan is being sabotaged from within. Organs are still being harvested, and one soldier defects and tries to escape, while there are plenty of players, such as a mother and son and pregnant girl, to get emotionally attached to – and plenty to hate. Some of the side plots feel a bit muddled and some player hallucinations are confusing, but for the central characters there is a lot of heart to be found amid the trauma. Ignoring rumours of spin-offs and more seasons (and a glorious final wink), it feels right to end this show now. Squid Game has been an brilliant television hammer-blow, but surely no one has the stomach for more…
Cinematographer Kim Ji-yong admits that a “happy accident” furnished one of the most alluring images of “Squid Game” Season 2: an overhead shot in which contestants stand on a merry-go-round while playing a devious game where they must form groups of a specific number before time runs out or be eliminated. “We planned the shot and pre-lit the scene from eye level, but when we actually went to put the camera up there, that was the first time we saw it,” he says. The elevated perspective was framed more than 100 meters above the contestants, with Kim wanting the image to “look flat” and “not as realistic.” The result is a surreal portrait that mimics the shape of an eyeball, a metaphorical reminder of the control room watching the contestants’ every move. During gameplay, an immersive camera, often handheld, makes the audience feel like a participant. Adding to the mystique is a painterly palette of primary colors. “For the whole season, I wanted to place red and blue lights, the colors coming from the X and O, in the dorm room,” Kim says. “When they play merry-go-round, the moment they pick who to go with, the light changes to red and blue. It symbolizes choice.”
Vanessa Agabo-Davalos has spent hours watching the dystopian drama “Squid Game” on Netflix. But nothing could prepare the 21-year-old college student for seeing one of the show’s actors walk the red carpet a few feet in front of her.
She found herself starstruck in the presence of Kang Ae-sim, who portrays Geum-ja (Player 149) on the South Korean thriller. All the more so when they snapped a photo together.
“You forget everything. You forget how to talk — it’s just like ‘Wow, I saw you on TV,’” said Agabo-Davalos, who traveled an hour from the Inland Empire and can’t wait to see the final season this month. “I feel like it’s a dream come true for the ones that really enjoyed these shows.”
She was among the more than 9,500 Netflix fans who gathered Saturday at the Kia Forum in Inglewood for Netflix‘s Tudum live event, an hours-long extravaganza meant to hype up audiences for upcoming series, movies and returning franchises.
People traveled from all over the world to celebrate their love for shows including “Squid Game,” Addams Family series “Wednesday” and sci-fi show “Stranger Things.”
During Netflix’s variety-show like program onstage at the famed venue, the company showed off how its computer animated version of Tony Tony Chopper, a toddler-sized reindeer-boy character in the live action pirate series “One Piece,” would appear in the upcoming season.
Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro unveiled a new teaser trailer for his November Netflix movie, “Frankenstein,” starring Oscar Isaac and Mia Goth, who both appeared onstage with the filmmaker. Fans also saw the first six minutes of the first episode of Season 2 of “Wednesday,” which will be released in August.
The event, named after the sound that plays before a Netflix program begins (“tuh-dum”), was part of Netflix’s ongoing effort to harness the enthusiasm its viewers have for its most popular programs and inspire them to keep streaming.
“It is about celebrating fans and giving something back to them,” Netflix’s Chief Marketing Officer Marian Lee told The Times after the event. “Of course it is also about promoting … we have a huge slate coming up.”
Netflix hosted the first Tudum event in 2020 in São Paulo, which came from the company’s Brazil team, which had an idea for an event that rewarded the streamer’s fans of young adult shows. That later led to Tudum evolving into different formats including festivals and livestreams, events that were more like a fan convention.
In 2023, Netflix held Tudum again in São Paulo, drawing more than 35,000 attendees and more than 78 million views through Netflix’s social channels.
But Saturday’s festivities in Inglewood took Netflix brand promotion to a new level.
It was the first time Tudum was livestreamed directly on Netflix, rather than on YouTube or social media outlets. The event played like a roughly two-hour live variety show, featuring “ask me anything” segments, as well as performances from music artists including Lady Gaga, who appears in the next season of “Wednesday.”
Xavier Woods, left, and Kofi Kingston attend Netflix Tudum 2025: The Live Event at the Kia Forum on Saturday in Inglewood.
(Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Netflix)
There was plenty of cross promotion of Netflix content during the show, as WWE wrestlers talked about why people should tune into their weekly live show on the platform, while also speaking about their love for “One Piece,” based on manga.
Tudum host Sofia Carson touted her upcoming Netflix movie, “My Oxford Year,” which also stars Corey Mylchreest, known for portraying King George III in Georgian era romance series “Queen Charlotte” from the “Bridgerton” universe. Sesame Street‘s Cookie Monster also made an appearance with actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, who star in the new Netflix movie “The RIP.”
“I don’t think another studio can pull this off in the way that we did,” Lee said. “Fandoms can be unique and distinct. They’re putting all those fans in a room together, WWE fans next to [mystery movie] ‘Knives Out’ fans next to Lady Gaga fans for ‘Wednesday.’ That’s an incredible achievement. That is something only Netflix can do.”
To some people, Tudum is a page borrowed from Walt Disney Co., which hosts the biennial D23 fan convention in Anaheim, pulling together disparate fandoms (Disney princesses, Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars) to converge in the same place. It raises the question: Does Netflix, a streaming service that produces shows from just about every genre for just about every kind of audience, have fans in the same way that Disney does?
Over the years, Netflix has expanded its live events and in-person experiences to keep viewers engaged. Those have included “Bridgerton” balls, Netflix-themed eateries and retail stores selling merch based on “Stranger Things” and other shows.
Lee declined to say how much Netflix spent on the event. Some fans bought tickets, ranging from $25 to $75, while others said they scored free tickets. Netflix said tickets sold out in about a week.
Netflix doesn’t have iconic animated characters like Mickey Mouse or storied franchises like “Star Wars” or Marvel. But Netflix’s strategy is to have something for everyone, and because of that, people are reluctant to quit it, industry observers say, even as economic anxieties run rampant.
“That is the competitive advantage of Netflix,” said Larry Vincent, a marketing professor at USC Marshall School of Business. “It really has become the big tent of streaming. They’ve invested pretty significantly to develop a stockpile of content.”
The streamer said last year it had more than 301 million subscribers globally. On Saturday, the attendees reflected that expansive audience.
Netflix Tudum 2025: The Live Event at the Kia Forum on Saturday in Inglewood.
(Adam Rose/Netflix)
Fans dressed up as their favorite characters from Netflix shows. People wore black dresses similar to Wednesday’s attire, straw hats in support of “One Piece” and green tracksuits like the ones players wear in the deadly “Squid Game.”
When Cookie Monster appeared behind a DJ booth on the “N” shaped red carpet to sing “‘C’ is for Cookie,” adults in “Squid Game” tracksuits joined in the chorus.
“It’s all-encompassing and global and passionate,” Tudum host Carson, known for starring in Netflix movies including “Carry-On” and “Purple Hearts,” said in an interview after the event ended. “It is truly extraordinary to feel the love from every single part of the world — it crosses languages, it crosses cultures.”
Shaheidi Jimenez, 21, came to the Netflix event as a fan of “Wednesday” and “Squid Game.” She hadn’t watched “Stranger Things,” but seeing the screaming fans for the show’s actors on the red carpet made her more curious about the sci-fi series.
“When I see the cast, it makes me want to watch it now,” Jimenez said. “I’m familiar with them more. It makes me want to watch the show and probably get into it.”
