The first season of Squid Game: The Challenge was a huge undertaking, so fans are wondering how much it cost to make and its filming duration. What was the budget of Squid Game: The Challenge and how long did the production take? Here’s all you need to know.
How much did Squid Game: The Challenge cost to make?
While it hasn’t been officially confirmed by Netflix, reports have suggested that Squid Game: The Challenge had a budget of over $10 million, with every episode costing around $1 million to film.
Building gaming alleys and a living area that would mimic the original K-drama while also creating similar costumes for the players was always going to be expensive. But per certain reports that have not been officially confirmed, each episode cost about $1 million to film on average. So, with a total of 10 episodes in the show, its production budget would have most likely gone beyond $10 million based on these reports.
On top of the filming costs, the show also gave away the biggest prize money ever, with the winner (Mai Whelan) getting $4.56 million. So, if the aforementioned budget reports are true, then Squid Game: The Challenge could have cost almost $15 million for Netflix in total. However, this doesn’t include any marketing costs.
While this is expensive for a reality game show, it’s still less than the $21.4 million spent on the original K-Drama’s production budget.
How long did Squid Game: The Challenge take to film?
Squid Game: The Challenge reportedly took just 16 days to film.
The game show had been shot far in advance as the contestants began to talk about it very early in 2023. According to Cosmopolitan, the filming was entirely done at Wharf Studios, London, where the players worked around 16 hours every day from 8 AM to 11 PM for 16 days in total. Some challenges such as “Red Light, Green Light” took a very long time to film so that the cameras could get perfect shots.
But the 16-day window is still pretty small and we reckon that Squid Game: The Challenge Season 2 could arrive in mid-late 2024 because of that. After all, it has already been greenlit for another season.
