Indian director sues Netflix, says Squid Game ‘rip-off’ of his 2009 film

Netflix Inc. was accused by an Indian filmmaker of copying his 2009 movie for its popular “Squid Game” series as the company prepares to release the second season of the show later this year.

The filmmaker, Soham Shah, sued Netflix in federal court in New York on Friday, alleging that the show is a “blatant rip-off” of his Hindi-language film “Luck,” which tells the story of a “group of desperate, indebted people enticed to take part in a series of competitive games to win large sums of money” who later learn that losing the contests means death.

“The main plot, characters, themes, mood, setting and sequence of events of Squid Game are strikingly similar to that of Luck, defying any likelihood that such similarities could be coincidence,” Shah said in the suit.

“Squid Game” made history in 2022 as the first foreign-language drama to win top honours at the Emmy Awards. The series was Netflix’s biggest launch ever, costing US$21 million to produce, and viewers watched 1.65 billion hours of the show in just four weeks. It remained one of the service’s top shows for months and Netflix announced in July that the second season will be released on December 26, with a third and final season coming in 2025.

“This claim has no merit,” a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement. “Squid Game was created by and written by Hwang Dong Hyuk and we intend to defend this matter vigorously.”