Netflix modifies 'Squid Game' scenes to include real phone number

By Reuters via

NBC News

SEOUL.— The worldwide success of the

Squid Game

series

has forced Netflix to make an unprecedented decision: it will edit several scenes to eliminate a phone number that appears at a key point in the plot.

The reason?

It is real and belongs to a South Korean woman

who has been receiving a flood of calls and texts for weeks. 

Netflix and the South Korean production company Siren Pictures announced on Wednesday the measure to make this number disappear, visible in an invitation that is given to several characters.

The Netflix series 'Squid Game' has become one of the most viewed on the streaming platform.Kim Hong-Ji / REUTERS

The nine-episode series is about a group of South Korean contestants with huge financial problems who participate in a game worth 45.6 billion won (about $ 38 million).

Failing, however, has irreversible consequences: dying. 

Since its premiere a few weeks ago, it has been a worldwide success and has become

one of the most watched series

in the history of the streaming platform. 

['The Crown' and 'Ted Lasso', the great winners of the Emmy Awards 2021]

Local television station SBS aired last month an interview with the owner of the phone number, named Kim Gil-Young, who runs a business in Seongju County, in the southeast of the country. 

Among the messages that Kim has received, some

ask him to receive an invitation

to compete in the Squid Game (translation of

Squid Game

) and go "from poverty to wealth."

Contestants about to compete in one of the deadly games from the Netflix series 'Squid Game'. Netflix / Netflix

"Together with the production company,

we are working to resolve this issue

, including editing scenes with phone numbers when necessary," explained Netflix, who asked fans to refrain from making calls or sending prank messages.

The woman told SBS that she was unable to change her phone number last month because she

is a primary source of contact with her clients

and that she had turned down an offer of 1 million won (about $ 840) in compensation.

The South Korean television station reported that the compensation has since risen to 5 million won.

[Latinos buy 25% of movie tickets but Latino talent is almost nil in Hollywood]

Netflix and Siren Pictures declined to comment on any offer to repair.

The Korea Film Council, a body under the Ministry of Culture, offers filmmakers numbers that are not used in real life, but television shows streamed on over-the-top (OTT) services such as Netflix do not benefit. of it.

Netflix and Siren had already said that they deliberately showed the last eight digits of the number and that they were unaware that, when

dialing it

,

the prefix was automatically added so that the number was completed

.