Hellbound creator Yeon Sang-ho reflected on working with Netflix on Season 1 of the series, as well as teased a potential second season, in a new interview.
"I will say that it's true, the process of working with Netflix was very enjoyable on my end," Sang-ho told Variety. "They very much agreed to and related to my creative vision, but they also created an environment where I didn't have to think about anything else aside from focusing on my creativity in terms of distribution or when or how to release the series."
The show creator added that Season 2 would be heavily inspired by the original Hellbound webtoons, noting, "... My partner Choi Kyu-Seok and I have decided that the story afterward will be told first through the webtoon and, as for whether we would want to turn that into another live-action series, that's something that we will need further discussion on."
"As you know, we have only just released Hellbound Season 1 and so we didn’t have any time to discuss that issue with Netflix," he continued. "So I would say this is something we need further discussion on."
During the same conversation, Sang-ho also discussed whether he's considered adapting his hit 2016 zombie thriller Train to Busan into a series for the platform, explaining, "There are a lot of ideas I've been tossing around but I personally think that for Train to Busan, I would like to continue that as a film series."
"In Korea, the circumstances are not very favorable to create a series in the Korean language with visuals that are comparable to Train to Busan the film and also, you know, I have to work with … the distributor that we started on the original film as well," he shared. "So I think taking into consideration all of those conditions, a film series would be the most feasible."
Based on Sang-ho's 11-minute-long Hellbound webtoon, Season 1 of the Netflix series adaptation is set in an alternate reality version of Earth, where supernatural creatures suddenly appear and start dragging humans to hell. The first three episodes focus on Detective Jin Kyung-hun and Chairman of the New Truth Jung Jin-su. Episodes 4-6 take place five years later and center on a production director named Bae Young-jae, who is trying to come to terms with the fact that his newborn baby is bound for Hell.
Within 24 hours of being released on Netflix, Hellbound became the #1 watched series globally, surpassing Squid Game. That series now sits in third place on the platform's most-watched shows list. Created and directed by Yeon Sang-ho, Season 1 of Hellbound is streaming on Netflix now.
Source: Variety