RUMOR: Is David Fincher’s English-Language Squid Game Really Happening?

Rumors of an English-language Squid Game from the three-time Oscar-nominated David Fincher have been swirling for years, and a new update suggests there might be substance to the hearsay.

A new report from The Playlist says that the director has put his Chinatown project — a TV prequel to the 1974 film of the same name — on pause and "has been quietly working on Squid Game for the last two years or so".

Netflix is yet to comment on the legitimacy, but The Playlist reports that Dennis Kelly, the BAFTA-winning writer behind Together, will pen the script.

Kelly's previous credits include Utopia, a television series he created in 2013, which went on to score a BAFTA nomination.

Gillian Flynn, who collaborated with Fincher on his film adaptation of her novel Gone Girl, actually went on to make a new version of Utopia in 2020 at Prime Video.

The Playlist shares that Fincher was set to be involved in an earlier interpretation of that 2020 version, but things fell apart, and he departed the project.

Despite all the speculation, however, Netflix's managing director, Ted Sarandos, said earlier this year, "Since the main series is still ongoing, there's no justified reason for Netflix to do a remake".

It seems that if it really is happening, details are staying under lock and key for now.