Netflix's 2024 K-Drama Lineup is Bad News for 'All of Us Are Dead' Fans

Summary

• Netflix has published their annual list of K-drama releases.
• Although the zombie show All of Us Are Dead is confirmed for renewal, Season 2 is not on the lineup for 2024.
• That means there will be at least three years between seasons for the hit series.

K-dramas have become one of the most popular genres on Netflix, and the streaming giant has responded by investing billions of dollars in more Korean programming. The K-drama list for 2024 includes both a second season for the international hit Squid Game and new titles like the romantic drama Marry My Husband.

One title missing from the list? A second season for the popular zombie apocalypse thriller All of Us Are Dead.

What Happened In Season One?

After a demented science teacher runs an experiment on school premises, a terrible virus breaks out in an urban high school. Soon the entire city of Hyosan is overrun with zombies, and a group of students must stick together to fight off the horde and make it to safety.

In the final episode, the six remaining students made it to a military checkpoint and were finally able to stop running. Months later, quarantine measures have finally been lifted and the survivors are living in a camp. Seeing a fire on the rooftop of the school, they sneak out to investigate and discover their friend Nam-ra, who reveals that she is surviving as a new breed of half-zombie.

Season 2 Is Coming… Some Time

The popularity of All of Us Are Dead meant that its renewal was announced in June 2022, five months after it premiered. In an interview with The Korea Herald, director Lee Jae-kyoo confirmed that he kept several doors open for a potential second season. He told the interviewer:

'Many directions, settings and scenes were intentionally produced to expand the story into an additional season, including the introduction of the new races of zombies… If the first season can be seen as having presented humanity's survival, the next season can talk about the survival of zombies.'

Even though there is a roadmap in place, the high production values and complicated shooting of All of Us Are Dead means that it will take a long time for filming to take place. This could potentially cause complications for Lee, as his characters are in high school during the first season.

A Long Wait For Fans

Given that All of Us Are Dead premiered in January 2022 and is not on the Netflix release list for 2024, it seems fans will end up waiting at least three years between seasons. It's irksome, but not unheard of – the popular series Sweet Home premiered at the end of 2020, but the second season didn't hit screens until the end of 2023. Likewise, Squid Game premiered in 2021, and the second season will only come our way later this year.

All of Us Are Dead is based on a webtoon, but most of the events in the original source material have been covered already. That makes the plot of Season 2 difficult to predict, though the cast list seems to indicate that Cheong-san (who was dead last we knew) will return somehow.

Fingers crossed the long wait will pay off with a second season as explosive and exciting as the first. Perhaps we'll see a time jump to explain the age gap between the teens in Season 1 and Season 2. Or perhaps we can just blame the stress of the zombie apocalypse for aging the characters prematurely. Either way, we can't wait to see this new world of half-zombies and humans learning to co-exist.

Source: Business Insider, The Korea Herald.