WHERE TO FIND THE NEXT SQUID GAME

If one piece of content caught the zeitgeist on the world stage over the last 12 months, it was Squid Game. But the show didn’t come from nowhere. Korean content has been breaking out in a big way across the last decade, from Parasite’s groundbreaking Oscar triumph to the proliferation of K-drama across Asia and beyond.

South Korean shows are set to light up the world in the coming months (they topped Netflix’s most-watched non-english chart for 10 of the rst 13 weeks of the year), with the likes of Soo Hugh’s Pachinko dropping on Appletv+ very recently and a Money Heist

remake in the works. And there are other nations doing fascinating things in the content space at a time when audiences are hungry for non-english language shows from di erent places. At the recent Series Mania and Mip TV forum events, the potential next Squid Game was the hot topic.

Next to Korea, Japan has been producing quality content for many decades, but much of it is made exclusively with the strong local market in mind and is primarily consumed on those shores. The truly worldwide nature of players such as Netflix and its aggressive local-for-global content spending policy could see that change in the coming years. Japan certainly has the pedigree, with it being both the fourth most-nominated and most-winning country in the history of the Oscars’ international feature lm category, including, most recently, for Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car.

Thailand is another nation insiders are keeping their eyes on, with an upcoming series on the famous Thai cave rescue coming out soon. As for China, geopolitical turbulence hampers its content-production abilities but there is plenty of IP that could capture international audiences.

Another intriguing and complex market is India, which has long been established for having a wildly successful cinema hub and is looking now to potentially produce a game-changing global TV show. Bollywood has the knowhow and capacity to make the next Squid Game, and the region, with its huge untapped middle class, is a key streamer battleground.

Turkey is another country that numerous executives cite when discussing booming emerging markets. The nation’s epic historical dramas are vastly popular at home and increasingly so abroad, particularly in India, and the year ahead could see it take a step up in terms of quality.

Meanwhile, execs are excited by shows coming out of Africa. Mo Abudu, the pioneering founder of Ebonylife and a past Deadline Disruptor, has deals in place with Netflix, Sony, AMC and BBC Studios and is forging, amongst multiple shows, a 50 Cent-produced African period drama titled Queen Nzinga. —Tom Grater and Max Goldbart