Netflix Unveils Major TV Show’s Spinoff: New Version of ‘Physical: 100’ on the Way

The new edition of Physical: 100 is coming soon, and Netflix is adding some some serious star power to the mix. Netflix is launching Physical: Asia, a successor to the massively popular physical endurance competition. The competition is now expanding from South Korea to all of Asia, where contestants will no longer compete for individual glory but for the glory of their entire country. Boxing legend Manny Pacquiao will be the featured contestant for the Philippines.

Physical: 100 took the world by storm in 2023 when it premiered on Netflix, quickly dethroning Squid Game as the most popular non-English series on the streaming service. Each season, it features 100 Olympians, professional athletes, bodybuilders, and more trying to prove which of them has the ideal human physique. Each contestant has a Roman Emperor-style bust created to represent their insanely muscular bodies, which they must dramatically smash with a hammer upon their elimination.

Ironically, many of the challenges viewers watched on previous seasons of the show feel like they’d fit right in to Squid Game, such as extreme versions of tug-of-war or tag. More unusual challenges include games like the Punishment of Sisyphus, an endurance test where eliminated contestants had to push a 220 pound boulder up and over a hill every 40 seconds, and the last person remaining rejoined the cast. Physical: 100 has also received praise for breaking gender barriers, as female contestants are doing the same challenges as the male contestants, and often beating them.

The new season will feature contestants from all across the continent to unleash “a full-blown national showdown where pride, survival, and teamwork collide.” There is no word yet on whether any previous contestants, like past winner Woo Jin-yong or fan-favorites Hong Beom-seok and Andre Jin, will return for the new season. Last season, competitive CrossFitter Amotti walked away with the 300 million won prize—about $200,000 in USD.

Physical: Asia will premiere later this year on Netflix.