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Final 'Squid Game' lands on June 27

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Next installment of 'Wednesday' returns

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'Stranger Things' enters final season

By Danielle Broadway

Jan 30 (Reuters) - The popular South Korean drama "Squid

Game" will return to Netflix ( NFLX ) on June 27 for a third and final

season, the streaming platform announced during its "Next on

Netflix ( NFLX )" event on Thursday.

The event also featured a short clip from the upcoming

season, which reveals yet another tension-filled scene from

within the games.

The survival thriller action series turned into a global

sensation in 2021, bolstering Netflix's ( NFLX ) subscription numbers and

becoming the streaming service's most-watched original series in

its first month.

Netflix ( NFLX ) reported that 142 million households had watched the

dark drama about people who compete in a deadly competition to

erase financial debt.

The return of "Squid Game," together with high-profile live

events such as the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson boxing match and two

National Football League games on Christmas Day, helped Netflix ( NFLX )

add a record 19 million subscribers in its fourth quarter, to

bring its total global subscriber base to nearly 302 million.

The third season will be the last installment of the series,

which was developed for television by Korean writer and producer

Hwang Dong-hyuk. The story will once again follow Lee Jung-jae

as the protagonist Seong Gi-hun, who is determined to stop the

dystopian games.

"Squid Game" is one of a trio of popular series

returning to Netflix ( NFLX ) this year. The supernatural drama "Stranger

Things" returns for a fifth and final installment, and the

Addams Family-inspired series, "Wednesday," is back for its

second season.

"Stranger Things" creators Matt and Ross Duffer said

they shot more than 650 hours of footage for the final season,

but told members of the press gathered Wednesday for Netflix's ( NFLX )

annual showcase of films, series and games that there would be

more stories to tell.

"With more than 700 million people watching, we can't just

be one thing," Netflix ( NFLX ) Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria said.

"We need to be the best version of everything."

Other highlights of the showcase included footage of

Academy Award-winning filmmaker, Guillermo del Toro's new film,

"Frankenstein," which reanimates Mary Shelley's classic tale.

"This film has been on my mind since I was a child - for

fifty years," Guillermo said in videotaped remarks. "And I've

been trying to make it for 20 to 25 years."

Ben Affleck touted a drama, "RIP," teaming up once

again with Matt Damon, this time in a crime thriller inspired by

true events, set in Florida.

Stand-up comedian John Mulaney will return to Netflix ( NFLX ) on

March 12 for a weekly live late-night show, "Everybody's Live

with John Mulaney," which will run for 12 weeks.

"We will be live globally with no delay. We will never be

relevant. We will never be your source for news. We will always

be reckless," Mulaney said.

"30 Rock" creator Tina Fey will adapt Alan Alda's 1981

big-screen romantic comedy, "The Four Seasons," as an

eight-episode comedy series, in which she will appear alongside

co-stars Steve Carell, Will Forte, Kerri Kinney-Silver, Colman

Domingo and Marco Calvani.