‘Squid Game: The Challenge’ Renewed For Season 2 Despite Lawsuit Threats From Injured Former Contestants – Forbes

Netflix has renewed its “Squid Game” spin-off competition show for a second season weeks after a pair of former contestants claimed to be considering a lawsuit against the streamer for hypothermia and nerve damage they suffered while filming one of the show’s segments.
An advertising poster for Netflix competition television show “Squid Game: The Challenge.”
Netflix has put out an open casting call for 456 contestants to compete in the second season of “Squid Game: The Challenge,” a British reality competition program that pits players against each other in a series of contests.
The streamer did not announce what monetary prize players will compete for next season, but the first had a $4.56 million purse and a winner will be crowned in a series finale Wednesday night.
Players in the first season were eliminated each episode starting with a game called “Red Light, Green Light,” which saw them attempt to cross an arena without being noticed by a robotic doll, and future episodes had them compete in the show’s variation of classic games like Battleship and heads up, seven up.
The first season of “Squid Game: The Challenge,” which released nine episodes over the last two weeks, has been Netflix’s most-watched show since it premiered on Nov. 22, the streamer reported, with a total of 31.5 million viewers in the weeks from Nov. 20 to Dec. 3.
Though the game show doesn’t have the level of danger included in the original “Squid Game” —a fictional Korean series in which participants are often seriously maimed or killed—two former contestants of “The Challenge” have threatened to sue Netflix over hypothermia and nerve damage they reportedly suffered while playing “Red Light, Green Light.”
Netflix confirmed at the time that three of 456 players did require medical attention after filming the show in a cold former Royal Air Force base, Deadline reported, and an independent safety investigation was conducted on set, but a spokesperson for the show said no lawsuits have been filed.
Other contestants have said they were subjected to “inhumane” conditions during filming and one contestant described the “Red Light, Green Light” game to Variety as a “warzone.”
Season two. Netflix did not say when the new season would premiere.
The original “Squid Game” series is a South Korean drama created for Netflix. In the fictional show, meant to be a commentary on capitalism and class divides in South Korea, 456 players in need of money compete in a series of deadly games for a chance to win ₩45.6 billion ($34.6 million). Behind the scenes, a group of billionaires are running the show for entertainment. Characters include an elderly man with a brain tumor who would rather risk his life for the game than die of his disease and a gambling addict who plays to pay off his debts and earn back custody of his daughter. The show took the world by storm and became the most-watched Netflix series in more than 90 countries. “Squid Game” has a 95% critics score and 84% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. A second season and the spin off, “Squid Game: The Challenge,” were announced last summer.
Fans of the original show have lambasted the spin-off almost since the beginning. The Independent on Wednesday said watching “The Challenge” presents an “ethical dilemma” and quotes Ling Lam, a lecturer in counseling psychology at Santa Clara University, as saying enticing people to give away “core parts of their humanity for the sake of entertainment is 100% an ethical violation.” Others have said the spin-off makes a mockery of the original “Squid Game” message—that forcing people to struggle as a form of entertainment is wrong. “Netflix cashing in on the success of Squid Game by turning it into a reality show is like Paramount cashing in on the success of Apocalypse Now by invading Vietnam,” one observer posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Netflix wasn’t the first to turn the “Squid Game” trials into a real competition. YouTuber Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson—who has a net worth of more than $500 million—recreated the trials of the show for his online audience and offered 456 random people a chance to win a $456,000 cash prize. The video has more than 540 million views.
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