"Squid Game" Director Hwang Dong-hyuk Wrote The Script 12 YEARS Ago And Was Rejected By Studios For So Long He Had To Stop Editing It And Sell His Laptop For $675 So He Could Eat

thenumbersgame1 Squid Game currently the worlds most talked about TV series was written 12 years ago by Korean Director Hwang Dong-hyuk. His script was rejected by studios, investors and even actors as the story wasdeemed too complex and gruesome. He faced 10 years of rejections and at one point even had to sell his laptop due to financial struggles. After Netflix' big investment in KoreaHwang finally got his break Without any worldwide recognisable actors Squid Game is currently ranked #1 in90 countries, and expected to be viewed by over 80M subscribers worldwide in it's first month of release,becoming the most-watched series in Netflix history.

It's been known for years that the ethos of "The Studios" is based on two things: 1) Guaranteed box office returns on investment, and 2) the audience being borderline-braindead levels of stupid. They'll pass up any project not named "The Avengers 17." If it doesn't have the name of a successful franchise + a number next to it on the cover sheet, good luck to your project ever seeing the light of day. Try to do something a little bit different, a little experimental, a little "new and fresh," and investors tuck their pocketbooks under their arms and sprint for the hills, waiting for the safety of somebody wearing a cape in a CGI landscape to get their ROI and keep the lights on. Because anything that hasn't been done before 1,000 times in a comic book or graphic novel or the small screen…the audience is too stupid to get. As a rule. That's why anything even remotely unique has 13 teasers on Youtube and a trailer that runs 4-minutes+ featuring every plot point, rising action, twist and turn, and climax resolution — the dumbass common folk need to be spoon fed their stories if they haven't seen it told in pictures before. 

That's exactly why Hwang Dong-hyuk found himself eating gas station noodles bought with the cash he made selling the laptop containing his decades-rejected script for the show that would eventually become the #1 Netflix feature of all time.

I'm starting to think maybe it's not us who are the stupid ones? I loved Squid Game. I watched it 8 minutes after reading the KenJac blog about it, and didn't put my iPad down until it was over. I thought it was perfect — and it was in a foreign language, with actors I'd never seen or heard of before, every piece of dialogue needing to be read from the subtitles on the screen. 

Somehow my little pea brain managed to pull off that viewing challenge — from the look of the ratings, looks like a FUCK TON of the general viewing public was able to pull it off as well.  I mean, the number one show on Netflix…not "foreign language" show, not "in Korea," but just…on Netflix, period.  

Pretty good!

PS,

I mean I loved the show but what about it was "too complex" exactly? Like we're not talking about "Memento" here — you play children's games and get shot between the eyes if you lose. Honestly it doesn't get less complex I don't think. Even the underlying critique of capitalism requires nothing more than a basic freshman year understanding of society and economics or 30 minutes of watching AOC Youtubes to know what the "deeper meaning" is.  So insulting. Not gganbu.