The second season of the survival game show series Squid Game has added an additional four cast members — Yim Si-wan, Kang Ha-neul, Park Sung-hoon and Yang Dong-guen — Netflix announced at its Tudum event out of Brazil on Saturday, June 17. The four new actors join returning cast members Lee Jung-jae, Lee Byung-Hun, Wi Ha-jun and Gong Yoo, all of who played main roles in Season 1.
The second season is set to premiere on the streamer in 2024, said director Hwang Dong-hyuk at a Netflix press conference in September 2022. "We will start shooting Season 2 next year (in 2023) and it'll be released the following year," said Hwang.
Season 2 of the Korean series will have big shoes to fill. Squid Game was a phenomenon for Netflix, pulling in 1.65 billion hours of viewing in 28 days. The record-breaking viewership was followed by historical Emmy wins for the Squid Game cast and crew.
With 14 nominations, the series took home a total of six wins, including outstanding directing, production design, special visual effects, stunt performance, actress in a guest role to Lee You-mi and lead actor to Lee Jung-jae, who also became the first Asian actor ever to win in the category.
In addition to the Season 2 cast announcement, Netflix announced at the Tudum event, that the controversial unscripted competition spinoff Squid Game: The Challenge is set to premiere in November. This announcement follows reports by Variety that the new competition series was "inhumane”, with one contestant alleging that "the conditions were absolutely inhumane and had nothing to do with the game."