As much as we’re all excited for the arrival of Season 2 of Squid Game, it doesn’t sound like we’ll be seeing it anytime soon. But thankfully, that’s not because Netflix canceled it.

That’s the good news, but not a matter of course at this point. Netflix has been scrapping projects left and right since it was revealed it lost 200,000 subscribers last quarter. But even if Netflix wanted to put Squid Game back to our screens to spur subscriber growth – as it’s so badly needed – it may not be doing it for a while. That’s because its creator is far from ready. In fact, Hwang Dong-hyuk has “only written down about three pages” of ideas so far — not nearly enough to launch the show’s second season, let alone onto Netflix’s servers.

The show’s director and writer spoke to Vanity Fair about how season two might play out and whether we should expect big changes in season two. The conversation also goes into why it took so long Squid Game to do in the first place.

They told him nobody was looking. In 2009, director Hwang Dong-hyuk attempted to write what would become Squid Game as a feature film. It was a time of global financial crisis. Hwang himself was in debt, as were his mother and grandmother. But despite his best efforts, he failed to secure funding for a film about hundreds of desperate individuals competing in children’s games to the death for a large cash prize. “People told me it was too unrealistic,” says Hwang. It was too absurd, they said—and way too violent—so he put his script away. A decade went by during which Hwang directed three acclaimed films: The Crucible, Miss Granny and The Fortress. But he didn’t forget Squid Game, and in 2018 he revisited the old script.

That and much more makes the original Vanity Fair article a great read. But that all only adds to the disappointment that we won’t see the show back on our screens until late 2023 and possibly 2024 at the earliest.

At this point, if you still want to watch the first season, now is one very good time to fix that!

Netflix, Disney+ and other streaming services, including Apple TV+, can be watched on almost anything. But to do it in style, be sure to check out our list of the best Apple TV deals on the market today.