The creator of the popular South Korean series "Squid Game," director Hwang Dong-Haek revealed that he did not receive a surcharge from the streaming service Netflix for the global success of the show.
He revealed this in an interview with The Guardian published on October 26.
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"I'm not as rich [as the winner of the game show - he gets $38.5 million], but I have enough. Netflix didn't pay me bonuses, I got the amount that was originally spelled out in the contract," Heck noted.
The publication called this state of affairs unfair, since Heck brought the platform a multimillion-dollar profit.
The idea for "Squid Game" came to the filmmaker's mind back in 2009, when the Republic of Korea was facing a global financial crisis.
He sought funding for his project for almost 10 years.
In an interview, Heck admitted that producing the show was so stressful for him that his health deteriorated and he lost six teeth on nerves.
On Oct. 17, Bloomberg estimated Netflix's revenues from the "Squid Game" series at nearly $900 million, a very large sum given that the creators spent only $21.4 million on the entire production -- about $2.4 million per episode. In addition, after the release of the series, the company's stock rose 7%.
The series from South Korea, "Squid Game," became the biggest project in the history of the streaming service.
It was released on September 17 and has already passed the 111 million view threshold, becoming the most popular series on the platform in its history.
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