Front Man icon Lee Byung-hun has opened up about his role on Squid Game, revealing that he and creator Hwang Dong-hyuk discussed a completely different Season 2 to the one we got. But the scrapped idea may just be revisited in a potential spinoff.
Squid Game Season 3 lands on Netflix on June 27, 2025, and is set to wrap up the story of Seong Gi-hun, aka Player 456 (Lee Jung-jae), for good. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the end for the dystopian TV franchise.
During the press tour for the upcoming chapter, Dong-hyuk has teased that he’s open to a spin-off series if it makes sense to the story. There are no concrete plans in place, but there are plenty of side characters to draw from.
One of those may be the history of Byung-hun’s Hwang In-ho. How did he become Front Man, and what did the deadly games look like then? These are all questions that were originally going to be answered in Squid Game Season 2, until the focus changed.
Front Man prequel would be perfect for Squid Game spinoff
In a conversation with Forbes, Byung-hun opened up about the development of the second season, which only went ahead due to fan demand. At the time, he suggested a prequel on Front Man, an idea Dong-hyuk had already considered.
“While I was filming the drama Our Blues on Jeju Island, Director Hwang – he had already decided to go ahead with Squid Game Season 2 – came to visit me and chat a bit,” Byung-hun told the outlet.
“I asked him, ‘What’s Season 2 going to be about?’ And he said, ‘Honestly, there’s nothing in my head right now.’ So I asked, ‘Could it maybe be about how In-ho (the Front Man) first entered the games and what it looked like back then?’
“He said that he too was thinking of heading in that direction.” However, it didn’t quite work out that way, although Front Man did end up playing a more significant role in Squid Game’s sophomore season.
“A lot changed after that, and instead of a story about the past, the narrative shifted into something that takes place in the present. So I was really surprised when that happened,” Byung-hun continued.
“Also, the fact that Hwang In-ho would personally enter the games using a fake name like Oh Young-il – I thought that was a really fresh idea. The Front Man ending up participating in the games was surprising even for me.”
Even though Squid Game went in a different direction, that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. A Front Man prequel would be a perfect fit for a spinoff: not only is Byung-hun one of South Korea’s most acclaimed actors, but his character remains one of the show’s biggest enigmas.
In Season 2, we learned more about his motivations: his wife developed cirrhosis and needed a liver transplant, and at the same time, they found out she was pregnant.
To make matters worse, he got fired and landed himself in debt with loan sharks, and so he joined Squid Game – but we still don’t know how he became the master of the evil scheme.
There’s still plenty of story left to tell when it comes to Front Man, which could make him the perfect anchor for the next chapter of the Squid Game universe if Netflix decides to play another round.
SoftBank reportedly looking to launch a trillion-dollar AI and robotics industrial complex