Indian Filmmaker Files Lawsuit Against Netflix, Accusing 'Squid Game' of Plagiarism

Soham Shah, director of the 2009 Hindi film Luck, has reportedly filed a lawsuit against Netflix, accusing the streaming giant of plagiarizing the thematic concept of his movie in its popular K-drama series Squid Game. Shah's legal action aims to prevent Netflix from continuing to infringe on the copyright of his film.

Since its debut in 2021, Squid Game has been a major success, with Season 2 set to premiere globally on December 26 and Season 3 already confirmed for 2025. The series holds the record as "Netflix's most popular show of all time," accumulating over 1.65 billion view hours in its first 28 days. Despite this, the hit dystopian thriller is currently facing some controversy.

According to a lawsuit obtained by TMZ, the Indian filmmaker is also taking legal action against Squid Game writer Hwang Dong Hyuk. The filmmaker argues that Hwang, who claimed to have created the story for Squid Game in the same year Luck was released, has copied elements from his film.

In the lawsuit, the filmmaker claims that Squid Game closely resembles his film’s plot, where people in debt enter a dangerous competition to win money. His movie, featuring stars like Sanjay Dutt and Imran Khan, also involves contestants discovering that losing means death and that each death increases the prize for the survivors.

The lawsuit also points out that, similar to Squid Game, Luck includes wealthy spectators who place bets on the players. This adds to the high-stakes, ruthless nature of the competition, where contestants are literally fighting for their lives.

The director of Luck says that his film's concept, which he wrote around 2006, was widely available before Hwang Dong Hyuk created Squid Game. Shah claims that because Luck was accessible when Hwang was working on the series, it would have been easy for the K-drama to start production in 2018 or 2019.

Shah recognized that after Squid Game premiered on Netflix in 2021, it became a huge success, boosting Netflix’s market value by more than $900 million.

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