MrBeast's 'Squid Game' Recreation Winner Takes Home $456,000 Following Explosive Competition

Squid Game, the survival drama show that rocketed to the top of the charts on Netflix, has been recreated by MrBeast and the winner went home with $456,000. 

Let’s ponder for a moment on the question: is recreating Squid Game missing the point of the story? Yes. That was easy. I mean, a man has been sentenced to death for smuggling copies of the show into North Korea, while those who purchased it from him will be imprisoned for life. The creator, Hwang Dong-hyuk, waited over a decade for his show to be picked up by producers and the original inspiration was the severe financial and psychological decline that individuals suffered following the global economic crisis of 2007 and 2008. 

“I feel like the world is gradually moving toward dystopia,” argued Hwang in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “There are more and more people who really don’t dream about the future, and that drives people to want to gamble, to really take it all and put it all on the line and hope for the best. And I think these changes have created an environment where the idea of people putting their life on the line playing children’s games is no longer something that is too absurd.”

If I haven’t hammered the point home at this point in the piece, I’m not sure what else I can tell you. YouTuber Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson spent approximately $3.5 million to build replicas of the arenas shown in the show, like the fake neighbourhood, giant playground, and tug of war set. He had even said in a Tweet that the project was “costing more than I thought it would, but I’m in too deep to stop now.”