Squid Game- Making Season 2 «2026»

“We were sleep-deprived, under pressure, and every day felt like elimination,” joked actor Kang Ha-neul, who plays a conflicted debt collector. “Director Hwang would call ‘cut’ and we’d all laugh nervously because it felt too real.” Composer Jung Jae-il returned to score Season 2, but with a darker, more fractured sound. He replaced some of the whimsical children’s song motifs with industrial percussion and distorted classical strings. The iconic “Way Back Then” theme is now heard only in fragments, symbolizing Gi-hun’s shattered innocence.

Filming for Season 2 officially began in July 2023, after a lengthy pre-production phase that involved re-engineering the iconic sets and designing new games. Unlike Season 1, which was shot on a relatively modest budget, Season 2 received a blank check from Netflix, but with that came the challenge of meeting astronomical expectations. Production designer Chae Kyoung-sun returned to recreate the eerie, pastel-colored dormitory and the sprawling island complex. But Season 2 demanded new arenas. Leaked set photos and official teasers revealed a giant carousel, a multi-level "rainbow track" with unknown traps, and a terrifying new doll—Cheol-su, the boyfriend of the first season’s Red Light, Green Light doll, Young-hee. Squid Game- Making Season 2

“I realized that Gi-hun’s journey is not about revenge, but about exposure,” Hwang explained in a behind-the-scenes feature. “Season 2 asks: what happens when one person knows the truth and decides to tear the system down from the outside?” “We were sleep-deprived, under pressure, and every day

The most significant challenge was casting the new batch of players. Over 2,000 extras were put through a mock “recruitment” process to find faces that could convey desperation, cunning, and moral ambiguity. Notable additions include Yim Si-wan as a charismatic cult leader, and Park Gyu-young as a North Korean defector whose survival skills rival those of Season 1’s Sae-byeok. Ironically, the production itself mirrored the show’s themes. A tight 11-month shooting schedule meant the cast and crew worked 14-hour days, six days a week. On one night shoot for a “Mingle” game (where players must form groups before a timer runs out), a malfunctioning platform prop injured three stunt performers, leading to a two-week shutdown and an overhaul of safety protocols. The iconic “Way Back Then” theme is now