Squid Game creator shares how a specific scene during filming assured him that the series was going to be a hit

No matter how amazing a series/film sounds on paper, its creator always harbors misgivings about whether it will be as successful on the screen, and the same was the case with Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk.

While he believed in the potential of his project, he initially had some doubts. But shooting a particular scene of the Netflix series melted away all those lingering doubts about whether the series was going to be a hit or not.

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The one scene that made Squid Game’s success inevitable for Dong-hyuk

Dong-hyuk cooked up many unique games and amped up some existing children's games for the Netflix series, but the one that remains etched in his memory is the red light, green light scene. It was while shooting this scene that the director realized that Squid Game was headed for a winning streak on Netflix.

In a recent chat with The Playlist, Dong-hyuk shared information regarding how he shot the Squid Game scene at the very beginning of their production, probably because “this particular scene was something that lived inside [his] head for over a decade.”

“This scene of grown adults, hundreds of them playing red light, green light, and then someone being shot down to death, people being in a panic, slow motion, the music, ‘Fly Me to the Moon,’ playing in the back.”

He further added how he was very anxious to shoot the scene as it had resided only in his imagination till then.

"I didn’t know if it would work, I wasn’t sure if it would land with the audiences [or] if the scene was going to be entertaining,"

Another reason he was very nervous was because nothing similar had ever been done before — they were the first ones doing it and that too on a "very large-scale." But after the scene was shot and Dong-hyuk sat down for editing, he had an epiphany.

“...when we added the slow-motion and ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ to the background and watching the edited version on set, I felt then and there, what I had thought of, was not wrong. And it was a very strange feeling, and I felt like it was very close to what was inside my head for all that time, and it was something that was not showcased to the world ever before.”

He continued:

“And so I think I had this feeling in me, where I thought, this is going to be something that’s going to catch people’s attention, as well as stir something up in their hearts.”

Well, Squid Game certainly managed to do that and is well on its way to beating its own success with its upcoming Season 2.