If you thought TV couldn’t get any more violent, think again: the director behind Squid Game, AKA the South Korean Netflix phenomenon and anti-capitalist allegory, has revealed that he‘s working on a film inspired by a novel penned by Italian essayist Umberto Eco – and it’s “much more violent” than his previous works.
Speaking during a session at MipTV along with producer Jun Young Jang at February Films, Hwang Dong-hyuk revealed he has already written a 25-page treatment about the project, which currently has the working title, Killing Old People Club. “It will be more violent than Squid Game,” he said, adding that he might have to hide from old people after the film comes out.
The creator is now back in South Korea, working on the second season of Squid Game, which he hopes to have streaming on Netflix before the end of 2024. “I’m not really in the right place to be discussing season two in an official setting,” he admitted back in December at a virtual Entertainment Weekly panel.
However, he went on to reflect on potential themes for season two, adding: “In the first season that we saw, Gi-hun is a character whose humanity is shown through or exposed in certain situations. In other words, his humanity is shown through a very passive manner. But I would think that in the second season, what he has learned from the games and his experience in the first season, they will all be put to use in a more active manner.”
Presumably, we will have to wait a little while for the release of Killing Old People Club. But fans can catch up on Hwang’s past projects on Netflix in the meantime. There’s 2011 crime-drama Silenced about a teacher – played by Squid Game’s Gong Yoo – who uncovers abuse at a school for hearing impaired children; 2014 comedy-drama Miss Granny, which tells the story of an elderly woman who magically regains her youth; and 2017 historical drama The Fortress, which stars Squid Game’s Kim Yoon-seok and Lee Byung-hun.