Netflix’s Squid Game comes under fire as Bollywood director claims it to be a copy of his film

On September 13, 2024, the Bollywood director Soham Shah filed a lawsuit in New York claiming that the Netflix hit drama, Squid Game, is plagiarized from his Hindi-language film Luck, that was released on July 24, 2009.

Bloomberg reported that Shah claimed the following in his lawsuit:

“The main plot, characters, themes, mood, setting and sequence of events of Squid Game are strikingly similar to that of Luck, defying any likelihood that such similarities could be coincidence.”

Shah’s allegations comes almost three months ahead of the show's season two premiere, which is slated for a global release on December 26, 2024.

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How similar is Soham Shah's Luck to Squid Game?

An image from the hit K-drama series (Image via Netflix)

Shah’s 2009 film revolves around an underworld kingpin recruiting a group of 'lucky' people from all over the world to compete in a series of challenges meant to test their luck. As the games progresses, the contestants realize that the stakes are much higher than previously thought, with gamblers betting on them, and their success turning into a fight for their lives.

The Bollywood film stars Sanjay Dutt, Mithun Chakraborty, Imran Khan, Danny Denzongpa, Rati Agnihotri, Shruti Haasan, and others.

Shah claimed in his lawsuit that he wrote the story for Luck around the year 2006. The film was released globally in theaters across India, the United States, the UAE, and the United Kingdom in 2009. He also named the show's creator Hwang Dong-hyuk in his lawsuit, alleging that he wrote his story in the same year that Luck was released.

Shah's allegations further state that Netflix would have had access to the film due to its "considerable advertising and marketing."

Furthermore, the lawsuit claims that Netflix has profited tremendously by expanding the world of Squid Game, thereby infringing on Shah's copyrights for the 2009 movie. Netflix released the reality series, Squid Game: The Challenge, in November 2023. Additionally, the streaming platform has also invested in an upcoming immersive experience, based on the hit series, that is set to launch in October 2024.

Lastly, his claim states that the series helped Netflix’s market value jump by over $900m (£683.05m).

Netflix responded to the lawsuit with the following statement:

“This claim has no merit. Squid Game was created by and written by Hwang Dong-hyuk and we intend to defend this matter vigorously.”

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What is Squid Game all about?

The dystopian survival thriller was created by Hwang Dong-hyuk and released on Netflix on September 17, 2021. The series features an ensemble cast of Lee Jung-jae, HoYeon Jung, Park Hae-soo, Heo Sung-tae, O Yeong-su, Anupam Tripathi, Wi Ha-joon, and Kim Joo-ryoung, among others.

The K-drama received worldwide acclaim for its novel concept. Its story features 456 cash-strapped players competing in a series of deadly children's games in hopes of winning the life-changing cash prize of ₩45.6 billion. Hwang said he based the show's concept on his personal financial struggles and used the story as a commentary on South Korea's glaring capitalism and class disparity.

Upon its release in September 2021, the K-drama quickly climbed the charts to become Netflix's most popular series of all time, with more than 1.65 billion view hours reported in the first 28 days of its release alone.

The hit K-drama also made history at the 2022 Emmy Awards by being the first foreign-language drama series to win multiple awards in major categories.

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Squid Game season 2 is set to release on Netflix on Decemebr 26, 2024.