Don’t bother with Dinner for Schmucks. It had Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, and Zack Gallifianakis, and still wasn’t very good.
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Beat me too it!
Also, when my son told me the premise of squid games, my reaction was “oh, Korean hunger games.”
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Same here; it was one of the few pieces of mandatory ‘classic literature’ which actually resonated with me… which is probably why I’ve always remembered it, even decades after being out of school.
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How Did This Get Made did an episode on it once, that they re released recently. They mentioned Paula Abdul too. Also, the way the Supes are marketed in the Boys reminds me a whole lot of the hunters in Running Man.
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I’m watching this thread, waiting for someone to chime in with a Greek play ca. 400 BC that has this theme.
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I don’t know of any Greek plays, but the Etruscans and Romans had this whole thing with actual games where unfortunate people die for the amusement of others.
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Sorry that the breadth of my reading didn’t go back that far.
(And Nas got that from Ecclesiastes 1:9.)
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Dinner for Schmucks is a sad American remake of a better French comedy Le Dîner de Cons (The Dinner Game) which is worth checking out. It was the second-highest grossing movie in France the year of its release (after Titanic).
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It also helps that there are literally dozens of direct adaptions in movies and TV, including a Gilligan’s Island episode.
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LUCK sounds more like Intacto (2001) than Squid Game
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I came here specifically to mention Intacto. I love that film.
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