The Korean survival drama Squid game has become the world's most streamed Netflix series ever, and one of the most talked about this year.
The plot revolves around poor people competing in typical Korean children's games - with life at stake.
Many had not expected that the series would be such a global success.
"The director (Hwang Dong-hyuk) was surprised himself," South Korean cultural journalist Lee Gyu-Lee told Kulturnyheterna earlier this autumn.
A cash cow for Netflix
Squid game has been streamed in approximately 142 million households and provided the streaming service with 4.4 million new subscribers.
Furthermore, it is estimated to have generated the company up to eight billion kronor in profit, reports The Guardian.
The 50-year-old screenwriter and director Hwang Dong-hyuk had been trying to sell the script for Squid Game for several years before Netflix took up the offer.
The stress of working with Squid Game cost Hwang Dong-hyuk six teeth, but he did not get any financial gain from the success.
- It's not like Netflix gave me a bonus.
They paid me according to the original contract, he says.
"I have enough"
According to Hwang Dong-hyuk, the series is a critique of capitalism.
The idea for the script came from his family's difficult financial situation after the financial crisis in 2009, where both he, his mother and his grandmother needed to take out a loan.
Today he says that, despite the missing bonus from Netflix, he has enough money.
- I'm not that rich.
But I have enough, he tells The Guardian.