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There’s a rumour going around that Netflix is trying to get David Fincher to produce and direct an American remake of Squid Game. A tweet by The Ankler reporter Jeff Sneider on April 14 suggested that Netflix “want him to tackle this project BADLY”. It makes sense that Netflix wants to milk Squid Game for all its worth. After all, the original South Korean series was a runaway success, garnering multiple Golden Globe awards and fourteen Emmy nominations, winning six. It received global critical acclaim and remains Netflix's most-watched series at launch. Bloomberg estimated that by October 2021, it had generated almost $900 million in revenue.
Re꧑making it i♒s a mistake. There is a long legacy of American media remaking Asian hits in an attempt to replicate its success for domestic audiences, and it sucks. I have long been resentful of Asian movies being remade terribly – The Ring, The Grudge, Oldboy, and Shutter were all remade, and all of them flopped despite their source material being highly successful. The remakes just weren’t as good as the originals. That’s the case with most Americanised remakes. They aren’t as good as the original, they aren’t creative with the source material, and they don’t add anything new to the original’s legacy.
Just watch the originals. Bong Joon-ho, in his Oscar acceptance speech for Parasite in 2020, said, “Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.” I agree, but I also think it’s a bit silly to underestimate American audiences the way American studios do. Of course Americans are capable of reading sub🤡titles and understanding foreign contexts with a little bit of research. My mother isn’t Korean, but she watches Korean dramas nightly. I’m not p🌠art of British high society, but I watched Bridgerton. Same thing – Squid Game has themes of economic disparity and examines the horrors of capitalism, which I’m sure people all over the world can relate to. In another layer of irony, Parasite is also getting a US remake soon, one which is set in the same universe but will tell a different story.
It’s funny that Hollywood wants to remake this show about capitalism, considering it’s capitalism that drives the desire to remake popular Asian shows. Americanising it won’t add anything to it. What could be changed about this series that could make it better than the original? What about the original makes it unpalatable to American audiences? Apart from it being in Korean, I can’t think of anything, and subtitles are easy to turn o🃏n. Are there specific references to Korean societal norms that foreign audiences won’t catch? Sure, the games are based on Korean childhood games, but the show’s message still resonates with non-Koreans. The show came out just two years ago, everybody’s already seen it and we all know the plot. I don’t care if you put Anya Taylor-Joy, Oscar Isaac, and Timothee Chalamet in it, I’m still not interested.
In fact, I think the show’s Korean-ness is a big reason why it shouldn’t be Americanised. Japanese RPGs like Yakuza are successful because of their cultural ties and heritage. Stripping them of this would completely change the context of the games, as well as what people love about them. It’s the same with movies, and I think audiences can sense this – that’s why American remakes keep flopping. Hollywood needs to come up with original ideas instead of endlessly rebooting old franchises, remaking films from other countries, and whitewashing them in the process. David Fincher, if you’re reading this, don’t do it. Do the third season of Mindhunter inste꧂ad.