One of the first-look images shows Gi-hun handcuffed to a post. Photos: Handout
The popular South Korean drama Squid Game (2021 to present) will return to Netflix on June 27 for a third and final season, the streaming platform announced at its Next On Netflix event on Jan 30.
The event also featured a short clip from the upcoming season, which reveals yet another tension-filled scene from within the games.
The survival thriller action series turned into a global sensation in 2021, bolstering Netflix’s subscription numbers and becoming the streaming service’s most-watched original series in its first month.
Netflix reported that 142 million households had watched the dark drama about people who compete in a deadly competition to erase financial debt.
The return of Squid Game, along with high-profile live events such as the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson boxing match and two National Football League games on Christmas Day, helped Netflix add a record 19 million subscribers in its fourth quarter, bringing its total global subscriber base to nearly 302 million.
The third season of the series, which is created and written by Hwang Dong-hyuk, will once again follow South Korean actor Lee Jung-jae as protagonist Seong Gi-hun, who is determined to stop the dystopian games.
Alongside the announcement, Netflix also dropped a chilling new poster and a batch of first-look images.
Is the Front Man feeling guilty after betraying Gi-hun?
The poster shows a masked guard dragging a lifeless contestant across an orange, flower-patterned floor arranged in a circular design.
Cast in eerie shadows are the silhouettes of Young-hee, the show’s infamous killer doll, and Young-soo, a male robot poised to make his debut in the third season. The poster’s tagline reads: “Prepare for the final game.”
Meanwhile, the first-look images paint an equally grim picture, with Gi-hun handcuffed to a post.
Netflix also teased that No-eul (played by Park Gyu-young), a North Korean defector working as one of the game’s masked guards, may be seen outside the game’s confines, with her mask removed.
The poster shows a masked guard dragging a lifeless contestant across an orange, flower-patterned floor arranged in a circular design.
Squid Game is one of a trio of popular series returning to Netflix in 2025. The supernatural drama Stranger Things (2016 to present) will return for a fifth and final instalment, and the Addams Family-inspired series, Wednesday (2022 to present), will be back for its second season.
Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer said they shot more than 650 hours of footage for the final season, but told members of the press gathered on Jan 29 for Netflix’s annual showcase of films, series and games that there would be more stories to tell.
“With more than 700 million people watching, we can’t just be one thing,” Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria said. “We need to be the best version of everything.”
Other highlights of the showcase included footage of Academy Award-winning film-maker Guillermo del Toro’s new film, Frankenstein, which reanimates English novelist Mary Shelley’s classic tale.
“This film has been on my mind since I was a child – for 50 years,” del Toro, 60, said in videotaped remarks. “And I’ve been trying to make it for 20 to 25 years.”
American actor Ben Affleck touted a drama, RIP, teaming up once again with Good Will Hunting (1997) co-star Matt Damon, this time in a crime thriller inspired by true events set in Florida.
American stand-up comedian John Mulaney will return to Netflix on March 12 for a weekly live late-night show, Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney, which will run for 12 weeks.
“We will be live globally with no delay. We will never be relevant. We will never be your source for news. We will always be reckless,” Mulaney said.
30 Rock (2006 to 2013) creator Tina Fey will adapt American actor-director Alan Alda’s big-screen romantic comedy, The Four Seasons (1981), as an eight-episode comedy series. She will appear in it alongside co-stars Steve Carell, Will Forte, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Colman Domingo and Marco Calvani. – Agencies
