Indian film director Soham Shah has filed a lawsuit against US streaming platform Netflix, claiming that the South Korean series “Squid Game” she produced is a direct rip-off of his film, Bloomberg reports.
“Filmmaker Soham Shah has filed a lawsuit against Netflix in a New York federal court, alleging that Squid Game is an “outright rip-off” of his Hindi film Luck (Fortune, 2009). – says the publication.
In the lawsuit, Shah points out that the basic plot, characters, themes, atmosphere, setting and sequence of events of one of Netflix’s most popular series are remarkably similar to his film, which cannot be a coincidence.
A representative for the service, for its part, said that the Indian director’s accusations are baseless and that Netflix will defend its project with all its might.
The “Squid Game” series premiered in 2021. The nine episodes were directed and written by Hwang Dong HyukHe said he came up with the basic idea for the series based on his own financial struggles in his youth, as well as social inequality in South Korea. Hwang wrote the script back in 2008, but for a long time was unable to find a producer until Netflix took an interest in him in 2019.
The series topped Netflix’s list of most-watched series in 90 countries, including the US and the UK. In the first four weeks after its premiere, the series was watched by 142 million viewers and “Squid Game” officially became the most-watched series in Netflix history.
The second season of the project is currently being prepared for release, with the premiere scheduled for December this year. The third season is set to premiere in 2025.
