Squid Game director Hwang Dong-hyuk told Entertainment Weekly: “The story that I both wanted to tell and that I am capable of telling through Gi-hun, it has been told with season three."
His recent interview comes ahead of the smash hit Korean drama premiering its second season on Netflix on 26 December.
Gi-hun, played by Lee Jung-jae, is the show’s main character, who won $45.6 billion last season after being abducted and forced to play deadly variations of children’s games.
"Honestly, when I was first working on the first season, I didn’t have any plans or thoughts about there ever being further seasons," Hwang said. "In Korea, it’s not very common for series to have multiple seasons, and also because season one was so incredibly demanding. “
Even this seems an understatement, as the director has previously described how he lost six teeth due to stress during the production of Squid Game season one.
Dong-hyuk explained that he saw a future for the series, but without him developing it.
"I do remember when I was finishing up my scripts for the first season, towards the end, I did have this vague idea.
"And I got to thinking about creating seasons two and three, firstly because of the huge success of season one as well as there being just so much anticipation and expectation for the story to further develop by the fans.”
Both fans and critics alike have held the show’s first season in high esteem. It made history at the Emmys, as the first non-English show to be nominated and win; it received a total of 14 nods and six awards. Season two has even earned Golden Globes nominations, despite it not being out yet.
"I wanted to tell the story of what happened to Gi-hun after where we leave him at the end of season 1 and what he does, what kind of actions he takes in order to put a stop to these games”, he said.
“As creator, writer, and director, it was almost my mission or my role to further tell that story. And I wanted to repay all of the love that we had received in one way or another."
"The desire to put a closure to the story that I began to tell arose after we worked on season one.” Continuing that: "In terms of why did I decide to end the story with season three, I think that the story I wanted to tell came to a full closure at the end of season three.”
Squid Game season two premiers 26 December on Netflix.
