‘Squid Game’ creator reveals spinoff series idea he wants to make in the future

Squid Game will officially end when the final season premieres on Friday, but the creator isn’t ready to say goodbye just yet to the brutal, bloody world he created.

Showrunner-writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk tells Entertainment Weekly that he’s been thinking about potentially continuing the story of Squid Game in the future with a spinoff series, and he already knows what it would be about.

“I actually had this faint ideation about possibly a spinoff — not a sequel, but maybe a spinoff about the three-year gap between season 1 and season 2 when Gi-hun [Lee Jung-jae] looks around for the recruiters,” Hwang tells EW. “There is that three-year period, and maybe I could have a portrayal of what the recruiters or Captain Park [Oh Dal-su] or officers or masked men were doing in that period, not inside the gaming arena, but their life outside of that. So that is some vague ideation that I have that could possibly be developed in the future.”

But as for the story of Gi-hun, a.k.a. Player 456, and his mission to end the games once and for all, the creator confirms that everything will be resolved by the end of season 3 — although he won’t reveal what that means for Gi-hun’s fate.

“Season 3 is indeed a finale, and you’ll be able to feel that once you watch,” Hwang says. “But I’m not trying to say that I’m going to close the door to spinoffs or sequels altogether because they say never say never.”

While it’s not surprising that the creator of one of TV’s biggest hits in recent years would want to keep making shows in that universe, one would think Hwang in particular would be ready to close the Squid Game chapter of his life after losing so many teeth due to the stress of production; the creator previously told EW that he lost two more teeth while making the final season after losing “eight or nine” teeth while making the first season.

“I thought it was going to be okay, but this time I had to pull out two more teeth as well,” Hwang said. “I had to pull out about eight teeth in season 1, and now I have two teeth more out, and I haven’t put them back in yet. So I’m waiting for them.”

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While Hwang thought returning to the world of green track suits and fatal childhood games to make seasons 2 and 3 would be easier than it was the first time around, it once again took a toll on his health.

“I do already have the universe and the space that I have envisioned come to life, so in a sense, season 2 and season 3 was easier compared to season 1,” Hwang said. “But the problem is that for season 2 and season 3, we had to shoot and write in one go. It was as if we were making one season, and we tried as best as we could to bring in season 3 as fast as possible. So the total amount was much larger, and we had to shoot for around one year, so it was very physically demanding.”

The final season of Squid Game premieres Friday on Netflix.