Netflix is said to have scrapped an English-language version of Squid Game, with director David Fincher now concentrating on other projects.
Squid Game is one of Netflix’s most-watched shows, so it follows that the streaming company would want to squeeze out as many spin-offs and related bits and pieces as it can – hence reality oddments like Squid Game: The Challenge.
For the past two years, meanwhile, reports have persisted that David Fincher has been working on an English-language Squid Game remake – perhaps as a film or a separate TV series. Last November, the Film & Television Industry Alliance carried a listing which stated that something called Squid Game: America was set to begin shooting in Los Angeles in February 2026.
That shoot clearly didn’t happen, and now The Playlist reports that Netflix has scrapped Fincher’s spin-off altogether. According to the outlet’s sources, interest in the project has waned as executives have come and gone, and after a couple of years in development, Netflix now has other plans for the Squid Game franchise instead.
If Fincher’s Squid Game is indeed dead, then it represents another near miss for screenwriter Dennis Kelly, creator of the disturbing Channel 4 thriller series, Utopia. Airing in 2013, the show was set to get an Americanised remake at HBO, directed by David Fincher and rewritten by Gillian Flynn.
That version of the show never happened due to HBO’s concerns over its budget; Flynn eventually headed up the Utopia series that streamed on Prime Video in 2020.
Dennis Kelly and Fincher continued to collaborate, however, with the screenwriter penning a script for World War Z 2 that also fell apart.
Kelly then worked on Fincher’s Squid Game remake, said to have the working title Heckler. It too appears to have fallen by the wayside, with Netflix said to be concentrating on developing versions of Squid Game for other markets such as France and Norway.
The original Korean series, created by Hwang Dong-hyuk, finished its three-season run in 2025. Netflix is sure to find ways of keeping Squid Game’s dystopia nightmare going in one form or another – just not with Fincher.
