Кадр з третього сезону «Гри в кальмара» / Netflix
«Squid Game» with the debut of the third season established a new Netflix record with 60.1 million views in the first 3 days.
For comparison, the second season of «The Squid Game» garnered 68 million views in the first 4 days after its launch on December 26, more than any other Netflix series in its first week of premiere (the previous leader was «Wednesday» with 50.1 million views in 2022).
Currently, the third season of «The Squid Game» is the ninth most popular non-English-language Netflix show, despite very modest ratings: Rotten Tomatoes critics, for example, gave it 79%, while the audience rating was a modest 50% — both scores are the lowest in the history of the project. The reviews, among other things, complain about the «bad ending», which is compared to the finale of «Game of Thrones».
«The Squid Game» has become a vivid example of what happens when you try to squeeze some more juice out of an initial idea that is talented and self-sufficient, in the best Hollywood traditions. And if the first season, with modest sugar lollipops or a few dozen glass balls, became a real sensation, the third season, already in the status of a big hit, could not offer anything more original than jumping rope or a bizarre version of the king of the mountain…. So whoever wins — the audience loses», — from ITC reviews.
«The Squid Game» — is a survival drama series that originally followed a group of 456 financially challenged people who join a deadly competition to win a large cash prize. In the following two seasons, the winner of the competition, Song Gi-hoon (Lee Jong-che), returns to the deadly arena in an attempt to stop the competition for good and save the new contestants.
The third season was the final one for the series, but showrunner Hwang Dong-hyuk did not rule out the creation of potential spinoffs, like a kind of interquel, which will take place between seasons 1 and 2. Instead, at the end of «The Squid Game», we were given a strong hint of the American version of David Fincher’s show, showing Cate Blanchett in the role of a recruiter. The series is expected to start filming in December.
All three seasons of «The Squid Game» are currently available to watch on Netflix.