Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: If that sound immediately filled you with panic and dread,
Speaker 2: you're likely one of the many, many fans of Squid Game,
Speaker 2: the gory, dystopian South Korean TV series which is coming
Speaker 2: back for a second season this week. Game is Wrong,
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the game. Indeed, the first season of
Speaker 2: Squid Game generated and estimated nine hundred million dollars in
Speaker 2: value for Netflix, and the show was a hit around
Speaker 2: the globe.
Speaker 3: Season one of Squid Game was the most popular season
Speaker 3: of television Netflix has ever released.
Speaker 2: That's Lucas Shaw, a Bloomberg editor covering media and entertainment.
Speaker 3: No show since then has eclipsed it.
Speaker 2: To promote the show, Netflix is running one of the
Speaker 2: largest promotion campaigns in the company's history in South Korea
Speaker 2: and around the world. Earlier this month, in Paris, hundreds
Speaker 2: of people descended on the Chanzo Lise to compete for
Speaker 2: tickets to watch the season two premiere. You can hear
Speaker 2: how much one of the team captains, a YouTuber named
Speaker 2: inox Tag, is trying to pump up the crowd in
Speaker 2: this video posted on his channel.
Speaker 3: The Life Exception. Having in New.
Speaker 2: York, Netflix set up an escape proom experience where excited
Speaker 2: fans are testing out their own survival instincts and then
Speaker 2: posting videos on YouTube, and in Spain and Portugal, fans
Speaker 2: can eat a special Squid Game themed KFC meal.
Speaker 4: Those pink sub guards could be found everywhere from Bondai
Speaker 4: Beach to Shanzo Luzi and the real sized Youngi doll
Speaker 4: flowing on the river of bankog so He.
Speaker 2: Kim is Bloomberg's Asia entertainment reporter based in Seoul.
Speaker 4: I've never seen any kind of global marketing on a
Speaker 4: single drama series bigger than this.
Speaker 2: All these live events, experiences and collaborations with other brands
Speaker 2: are part of a bigger strategy for Netflix to extend
Speaker 2: the show's popularity by growing it beyond the screens.
Speaker 3: Netflix wants to turn this into something that wasn't just
Speaker 3: a one off, you know, sensation in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: and be a show that can last throughout the decade.
Speaker 2: Lucas and So He got to visit the set where
Speaker 2: they filmed season two of Squid Game. They talked to
Speaker 2: the show's director Huangdong Huk about his journey and how
Speaker 2: season two almost never even got made. Welcome to the
Speaker 2: Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm Rebecca Chung Willkins.
Speaker 2: Every week we take you inside some of the world's
Speaker 2: biggest and most powerful economies and the markets, tycoons, and
Speaker 2: businesses that drive this ever shifting region. Today on the
Speaker 2: show Netflix's Big bet on expanding squid Game into a
Speaker 2: global franchise. Squid Game dropped in September twenty twenty one
Speaker 2: at the height of the pandemic, and almost overnight, the
Speaker 2: nine episode series blew up into a global phenomenon. So
Speaker 2: he for people who haven't watched Squid Game, what is
Speaker 2: a story about?
Speaker 4: Squid Game is a survival thriller story around his Honky Hun,
Speaker 4: who is a gambling addict and is really broke. He
Speaker 4: gets invited to this mysterious death or in life competition
Speaker 4: on a heathen island in South Korea where he's invited
Speaker 4: to play in these children games. The ultimate winner over
Speaker 4: hundreds of other competitors receives a large cash price and
Speaker 4: I will live it at that So to not spoil.
Speaker 2: It, well, spoiler a lot. The premise of this show
Speaker 2: is that if you win these playground games, you get rich,
Speaker 2: really rich, but if you lose, you get killed, So
Speaker 2: it does get quite violent. So the people in the
Speaker 2: show take these great risks in pursuit of money. What
Speaker 2: does director Huang hope that people will take away from
Speaker 2: the show?
Speaker 4: I talked to the director and he told us that
Speaker 4: the story is really about the unlimited competition of capitalist
Speaker 4: society and how unequal that is. The show explores themes
Speaker 4: of the gap between the reach and the poor and
Speaker 4: how far people will go for money?
Speaker 2: Sure, and what did director Huang tell you about what
Speaker 2: inspired him to write this kind of story?
Speaker 4: So it was during the global financial prices in two
Speaker 4: thousand and eight. The financial crisis hit the content market
Speaker 4: in South Korea as well, and director Juang went almost broke.
Speaker 4: He had less than the ten dollars in his bank account,
Speaker 4: nothing to do but reading comic books, being hopeless and
Speaker 4: resentful against the society, and the only way out from
Speaker 4: this desperate reality emerged in his imagination, like questioning himself,
Speaker 4: what if there's a survival game that could turn his
Speaker 4: life upside down and make him a millionaire? And what
Speaker 4: kinds of games he would be winning and make him
Speaker 4: the finest survival So the script from the Lifeboard Death
Speaker 4: situation has become the Squeak Game.
Speaker 2: But once he had the story down, so he says,
Speaker 2: Huang had a hard time selling the script to Korean
Speaker 2: production houses and broadcasting stations. He says they thought it
Speaker 2: was too violent, confusing, and expensive to make, so to
Speaker 2: work on something else, directing films and waiting for the
Speaker 2: right buyer for Squid Game to come around, And a
Speaker 2: decade later, in twenty eighteen, he finally found someone interested
Speaker 2: in buying it. Netflix.
Speaker 4: Netflix launched at streaming service in twenty sixteen in South Korea.
Speaker 4: The main strategy of Netflix has been focused on local
Speaker 4: stories for local audiences, so Netflix picked up the idea
Speaker 4: of a quangscript around twenty eighteen. So yes, it was
Speaker 4: a lucky deal for Uhang as well. In foreign Netflix,
Speaker 4: Netflix bought the show and focused mainly on promoting it
Speaker 4: to a regional audience, so Netflix didn't heavily promote the
Speaker 4: show when it first came out. It was targeting Korean
Speaker 4: and some local audiences in Asia.
Speaker 2: But then this series took the world by storm. For
Speaker 2: a time, it top Netflix's list of the most watched
Speaker 2: titles on every continent. The show won multiple Emmy Awards
Speaker 2: and was spoofed on Saturday Night Live. The ultimate signal
Speaker 2: in the US that something is broken into the culture
Speaker 2: when SNL can name check it, no explanation.
Speaker 1: Needed, broken, damn shame, you're gonna play the schoo weird game.
Speaker 2: It was clear the company had a hit on their hands,
Speaker 2: and naturally they wanted to keep that going, but they
Speaker 2: had a problem at the end of the first season.
Speaker 2: Huang initially had no plans for writing a second The
Speaker 2: director told so He that making season one was so
Speaker 2: intense that he lost seven or eighteenth during the process.
Speaker 5: She didn't want to interview honestly. After first season launched,
Speaker 5: I said, no, there is no second season because you
Speaker 5: were so challenging. I lost so many teeth. It was
Speaker 5: just too tough. I never wanted to do a series again,
Speaker 5: and that's what I told him.
Speaker 2: And yet there were financial reasons to press ahead. Netflix
Speaker 2: had paid for the first season of the show almost
Speaker 2: entirely upfront, which meant that many cast members didn't immediately
Speaker 2: share in the company's win form. And despite some one
Speaker 2: time bonuses for the team behind the show, Huang said
Speaker 2: he felt like the second season would provide the team
Speaker 2: with a better chance to get more compensation.
Speaker 5: And I said this many times, even though season one
Speaker 5: was a mega hit and a huge global success. To
Speaker 5: be honest from the creator site, we don't receive the
Speaker 5: economic compensation right away because it's not set up like that.
Speaker 5: The revenue U kept from the box office tickets or
Speaker 5: anything like that. So we felt like we had to
Speaker 5: do the second season that will provide a more eedequal compensation.
Speaker 5: Befeitting the success of this show.
Speaker 2: Check out as so so he Season two premiers this week.
Speaker 2: What are we expecting?
Speaker 4: More killings, more storylines, more characters. I'm not like giving
Speaker 4: any of like secret spoilers, but it will be very
Speaker 4: interesting and there will be new games. I believe.
Speaker 2: After the break how Netflix is capitalizing on Squid games
Speaker 2: success and can the height for the show last. Bloomberg's
Speaker 2: Lucas Shaw, who covers media and entertainment, says that the
Speaker 2: popularity of Squid Game has translated into real revenue for Netflix.
Speaker 3: Netflix doesn't break out revenue to any specific show. However,
Speaker 3: in the weeks after the first season of the show
Speaker 3: came out, I obtained some internal documents that suggested Netflix
Speaker 3: thought that the show was worth about nine hundred million
Speaker 3: dollars to the company or would be.
Speaker 2: And how does that nine hundred million compare to other
Speaker 2: big global Netflix hits.
Speaker 3: We don't know, because I didn't get documents that sort
Speaker 3: of compared it to a bunch of others. I did
Speaker 3: see it relative to a few other titles, including some
Speaker 3: stand up specials, and you know, it's much much bigger
Speaker 3: than any of those. And it's pretty clear that Netflix,
Speaker 3: after the success of season one, wanted to try to
Speaker 3: build off of that and turn it into sort of
Speaker 3: a larger franchise because they thought that that would increase
Speaker 3: the value of the company.
Speaker 2: In addition to season two, Netflix also announced that it
Speaker 2: would premiere Squid Game season three, it's final season, in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five and more. Episodes of this series are
Speaker 2: just one way Netflix has been capitalizing on the show's success.
Speaker 2: Since the show's release, Netflix has been building out the
Speaker 2: franchise in other ways too.
Speaker 3: They started developing a video game tied to Squid Game.
Speaker 3: They started developing a reality television show tied to the show.
Speaker 3: There's a Squid Game experience in a few cities. Vans
Speaker 3: can go play the challenges from the show. There's a
Speaker 3: ton of consumer product integrations right There's special edition tracksuits
Speaker 3: and skincare and crocs. So yeah, if you have a
Speaker 3: popular property, you want to find ways to exploit it
Speaker 3: in as many ways as possible and keep it fresh
Speaker 3: in the minds of your customer and give them different
Speaker 3: ways to interact with it, because it will make them
Speaker 3: love it more.
Speaker 2: And Lucas says expanding on existing franchises like Squid Game
Speaker 2: is not just potentially lucrative, but necessary for Netflix's business
Speaker 2: because as the company gets bigger and bigger, it's hard
Speaker 2: to find new customers.
Speaker 3: Well, the original Squid Game was a huge catalyst for
Speaker 3: Netflix in Asia, and so there's a strong desire for
Speaker 3: that to continue. Netflix would like to see it help
Speaker 3: attract more customers, certainly in South Korea, where there's strong
Speaker 3: national pride about the show, but also in Japan and
Speaker 3: Southeast Asia other parts of the world where it's still
Speaker 3: trying to grow a lot. It's very difficult to predict
Speaker 3: something brand new that people like, but once you have
Speaker 3: something that you know is successful, it's much safer to
Speaker 3: make more of it because you know that there's an
Speaker 3: audience for it. So Netflix wants to have those tent
Speaker 3: pole franchises that they can have in every quarter to
Speaker 3: make sure that it serves as an attraction for potential
Speaker 3: new customers.
Speaker 2: So we've got the sequel of Factor trilogy, reality TV show,
Speaker 2: video game, merch, potential movie spin off, these sort of
Speaker 2: in person experiences. Is it fair to say it's kind
Speaker 2: of like the Harry Potter of South Korea?
Speaker 3: You know, look, I'm reluctant to call it the Harry
Speaker 3: Potter of South Korea because a show about people basically
Speaker 3: in this competition where they all die, just doesn't lend
Speaker 3: itself naturally, you'd think to franchises or to exploitation. Harry
Speaker 3: Potter has been a cultural touchdown now for twenty five years,
Speaker 3: and it's going to continue to be for the next
Speaker 3: twenty five, fifty seventy five years. My kids are going
Speaker 3: to be reading them, my kids' kids might be reading them.
Speaker 3: I think the odds of Squid Game having that kind
Speaker 3: of longevity are pretty low. I don't think that people
Speaker 3: are going to be obsessing over Squid Game in fifty years.
Speaker 3: I could be wrong. I'd be happy to be wrong.
Speaker 3: But it feels like a show that really defines a
Speaker 3: particular decade and moment in time.
Speaker 1: Lucas, do you have.
Speaker 2: A prediction of how long will continue to see the
Speaker 2: show ricocheting through the Netflix universe.
Speaker 3: The hype will continue as long as Netflix can keep
Speaker 3: more of the show going. The hits in this modern
Speaker 3: age burn bright and burn fast for the most part,
Speaker 3: right and unless you keep it going. Disney puts out
Speaker 3: new Marvel stuff every year. They try to put out
Speaker 3: new Star Wars every year. The Universal puts out new
Speaker 3: Fast and Furious every couple of years. The key to
Speaker 3: these franchises is the right balance between keeping it in
Speaker 3: the culture and zeitgeist so people are interacting with and
Speaker 3: relating to it without over exposing so that people get
Speaker 3: tired of.
Speaker 2: This is the big take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm
Speaker 2: Rebecca Cheung Wilkins. This episode was produced by Naomi Ung
Speaker 2: Young Young and Jessica Beck with help from Alex Tie.
Speaker 2: Sound design was done by Jessica. It was mixed by
Speaker 2: Alex Segura and fact checked by Eddie dwe It was
Speaker 2: edited by Caitlin Kenny, Aaron Edwards, and Felix Gillette. We'd
Speaker 2: like to give special thanks to Gi Hyung Lee. Naomi
Speaker 2: Shavin is our senior producer. Elizabeth Ponso is our Senior editor,
Speaker 2: Nicole Beamstabor is our executive producer, and Sage Bauman is
Speaker 2: Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Please follow and review The Big
Speaker 2: Take Asia wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps
Speaker 2: new listeners find the show. The Big Take will be
Speaker 2: back Thursday, and Big Take Asia will return next week.
Speaker 2: See you next time.