Squid Game faced rejection a decade ago because it was considered "too grotesque and too unrealistic"

BuzzFeed

Many studios turned down Squid Game when creator and director Hwang Dong-hyuk first pitched it a decade ago, according to The Wall Street Journal. Hwang came up with the idea for Squid Game while living with his mother and grandmother, but he was forced to put the script on hold and sell his laptop for cash. Hwang believes that Netflix decided to make the show because the class issues resonated during the pandemic. “The world has changed,” Mr. Hwang said. “All of these points made the story very realistic for people compared to a decade ago.”