South Korean drama Squid Game became the most watched Netflix show ever when it hit screens in September 2021 – and for good reason.
The series centred around a secret competition in which 456 players, all who are in deep financial difficulty, risk their lives to play a series of deadly children’s games for the chance to win a multi-billion-dollar prize fund.
All they must do is survive.
From the creators of The Traitors and Race Across the World, Studio Lambert, an unscripted reality version is due to land on November 22.
“As they compete through a series of games inspired by the original show — plus surprising new additions — their strategies, alliances, and character will be put to the test while competitors are eliminated around them.
"The stakes are high, but in this game the worst fate is going home empty-handed,” reads the official show description on Netflix.
Here's everything we know so far about Squid Game: The Challenge…
456 PLAYERS
Reality shows typically deal with small casts so that the viewer can get to know each person throughout the series – but Squid Game: The Challenge will see 456 contestants compete, just like in the drama version of the hit show.
Whilst it was filmed in the UK, producers decided to include a lot of American contestants to appeal to the network’s audience in the US, as well Europeans, people from South America, South Africa and Australia. The cast will be made up of varied ages, too.
There are 99 Brits competing – but we’ll have to wait to find out who they are as their identities have been kept top secret.
A FAIR GAME
With a whopping prize fund of $4.56M – the largest in TV history – it’s unsurprising that rule-breaking and compliance were taken very seriously.
Up to a dozen trained lawyers – or adjudicators – from an independent company were drafted in to moderate each game.
According to Stephen Lambert, “there weren’t opportunities to cheat” because “the level of scrutiny, of checking everything, of compliance with the rules, was very intense, as you would expect for a show with such a big prize.”
In Red Light, Green light, players were wore tracking devices, and microphones were placed around the room as well as attached to contestants at random.
TOP SECRET TESTING
One of the most nail-biting moments of episode two includes a cookie challenge, in which competitors are given a piece of caramelized sugar candy, known as a ‘dalgona cookie’ in South Korea.
They must separate a shape – a circle, a star, or an umbrella – from the fragile snack without breaking the shape itself. With the clock ticking down, participants must break the shape in time or die.
Since then, hundreds of fans have had a go at making the cookies and then doing the challenge themselves. It was no different for the team behind Squid Game: The Challenge, who took 19 versions to perfect the biscuit with the right level of brittle.
But the producers are keeping the final recipe very close to their chest…
SIX-MONTH STAGE SET UP
Much of the original drama was shot using CGI and green screen, but in the reality version everything had to be physically constructed.
It was a huge feat but production designer Mat Weekes pulled it off. In six months, a crew of up to 85 people built the sets in six interconnecting sound stages in Barking, East London. There, the contestants would spend 16 consecutive days.
But the first iconic game – Red Light, Green Light – was filmed in a former RAF base near Bedford (Europe’s largest indoor space, Cardington Studios) and the 4.2m life-size doll took three months to build alone.
When Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk visited the set for the first time during filming, he couldn’t believe team had “built it all for real” – even the show’s iconic maze-like staircase structure and the giant, cash-filled piggybank – which weighed over 800kg at its peak.
FAKE BLOOD
Of course, nobody actually dies in the reality version of the show and the team wanted fans to be reassured that the reality version of the show is “never gory”.
When a player is eliminated from a competition, they’re covered in black ‘blood’ as opposed to red.
Competitors wore vests with air compression chambers that would explode and release a black liquid – a reference to squid ink – when they got hit.
THE GUARDS
The murderous guards played a huge role in the original version of the show, so it comes as no surprise that they were trained to be just as terrifying for the real-life version.
It’s thought the actors received training and even a choreographer in order to truly embody the faceless, red uniformed men.
Squid Game: The Challenge is on Netflix from November 22
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