TAKE a look inside the real-life game show based on Netflix’s most-watched series, Squid Game, which producers have admitted was a “nightmare” to film.
Squid Game: The Challenge is coming to Netflix later this month and is based on the original series. 456 real contestants compete against each other for the biggest game show prize ever, but some who have already been eliminated from the show have slated The Challenge for “lax" health and safety standards.
After it premiered on Netflix in 2021, the Korean show Squid Game became an unexpected global success and took the top spot as the streamer’s most-watched series of all time.
As they watched Lee Jung-jae’s character Seong Gi-hun win the horrific competition, many viewers suggested they would enjoy competing on a real-life version of the game show – and now it seems they’ve got their wish.
On November 22, Netflix viewers can tune in to watch 456 contestants compete in a range of games inspired by Squid Game, minus the grisly deaths. The competitors hail from all across the globe, but a large portion of them come from North America, where Squid Game was incredibly popular.
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Staying true to the original show, Squid Game: The Challenge has a $4.56 million (£3.6 million) prize up for grabs. This is the biggest cash prize of any game show in the world.
Netflix’s goal was to keep the game show as authentic to the original series as possible. So viewers will see the contestants wearing green tracksuits like the characters.
Stephen Lambert’s production company, Studio Lambert, was hired by the streamer to take charge of the show. With a background in reality TV shows like Gogglebox and competition shows like The Circle and BBC’s The Traitors, The Challenge is by far the most “unusual” show he’s ever produced, he told Radio Times.
But it was an exciting project for Stephen and his team. First things first, they had to build it. Using up four sound stages in Barking, east London, Lambert’s team and their co-production company, The Garden, headed up by John Hay, got to work recreating the impressive TV sets.
John recalled that when Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk visited the set, “the first thing he said was: ‘Oh my goodness, you’ve had to build it all for real?’
“He could do a lot of it in CGI and green screen. We had to build the entire world,” he explained.
It was The Challenge’s production designer Mathieu Weekes and games designer Ben Norman who were in charge of this.
One of their biggest projects was building the Red Light, Green Light doll, which works like a lethal version of musical chairs.
“I had to find the biggest 3D printer in the UK to get the body parts built,” Ben explained, revealing that creating the 4.2m-tall doll took three months. And they teamed up with an AI company to make sure it can detect movement like the doll in the show.
However, in this real-life version of the show, players won’t be riddled with bullets if they fail to stop moving when the music stops.
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Steven explained that the show has put a different spin on the elimination process.
“The decision was made that on the squibs the players wear that explode when they are eliminated, the liquid should not be red, but black,” like squid ink. “It’s never gory,” he said. And to remove any bias, a legal adjudicator approves every elimination.
In addition, the producers have teased that there will be some additional surprises to keep viewers and contestants entertained.
“There were concerns that a lot of the contestants would over-analyse every single game in the drama, and would know what’s up next and have a game plan. So we put a few extra games in to change it up and level the playing field slightly. None of them knew what was coming,” Ben said.
One of these surprises is the introduction of an intellectual game - a three-dimensional version of Warships - in place of tug of war, which is physical.
Despite the grand scale of production that the show requires, The Challenge seems very thoughtfully designed. However, there were difficulties when it came to filming.
Since the producers had no idea who the winner or “main character” would be, they had to make sure they filmed enough content for each play from the beginning.
“The obvious difference is that Hwang Dong-hyuk knew who his main characters were and so focused on their stories. We had no idea who they would be and, every time we thought we’d found one, they were eliminated,” Steven said.
“It’s a nightmare in terms of the filming,” John agreed. “All we could do really was to track all the players and then go back in the edit when we had a clear sense of who came through to the final stages and then weave them in. It was an astonishing logistical challenge.”
But don’t expect the early favourite to necessarily become the winner, Studio Lambert’s executive producer Toni Ireland warned.
“We deliberately focus on some people who get eliminated early so you can’t assume that just because they’re interviewed early on they will get through.”
Now that the show has finished filming, some unsuccessful contestants have spoken out about their time on the show, using X, formerly Twitter, to complain about poor health and safety standard.
A particular complaint centred around the Red Light, Green Light game, which was allegedly filmed in very cold temperatures. One contestant was even taken away in a stretcher.
Steven confirmed that it was a “cold day” when they filmed the scene in a former aircraft hangar in Bedfordshire, which is reportedly the largest indoor space in Europe and cannot be heated.
“It was a very cold day and all the players were told it would be very cold and given everything possible to mitigate against that. A few people who were eliminated and had spent the day standing in the cold took to social media to complain.”
He added that following correct health and safety guidelines actually meant contestants spent quite a while in the hangar.
“What was five minutes on screen took very much longer. But it was much better than the conditions on Survivor,” he said.
In The Challenge, the games are the aforementioned Red Light, Green Light, and Warships, as well as Dalgona Candy Challenge, and the Squid Game finale, which is a fight to the death on the drama, but is “obviously different and top secret,” Ben said.
Squid Game: The Challenge premieres on Netflix on November 22. The first season of Squid Game is available to stream on the platform, while the second season is expected next year.
