[HanCinema's News] Lee Jung-jae Eyes $700,000 Per Episode Deal for "Squid Game - Season 2"

With the backdrop of ongoing negotiations, actor Lee Jung-jae was the subject of a recent news report stating that he has accepted an appearance fee of a billion won, or seven hundred thousand dollars, per episode of "Squid Game - Season 2" for 2024. Siren Pictures denied the report, stating that as the script for "Squid Game - Season 2" is incomplete, concrete salary negotiations haven't yet begun. The original report came courtesy of TV Daily.

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The report also claimed that "Squid Game - Season 2" would have nine episodes just like the first season, and that this would have given Lee Jung-jae an overall payout of around six million dollars for the show. Such a fee would be exceptionally high compared to elsewhere in the South Korean drama industry. At present, the leader for that metric is Kim Soo-hyun for the Coupang Play drama "One Ordinary Day" where he earned three hundred and fifty thousand dollars per episode.

Overall Netflix is expected to spend around seventy million dollars on "Squid Game - Season 2" with only part of this going to Lee Jung-jae and presumably Lee Byung-hun, the only stars of "Squid Game" who are likely to return. "Squid Game" was a huge hit for Netflix in 2021. It topped worldwide Netflix charts for forty-six days that year, and remains the most popular Netflix show of all time with 1.65 billion hours viewed.

Written by William Schwartz