After years of growing one of the world’s strongest local entertainment industries with high quality product, a sophisticated audience and a box office that consistently ranks among the Top 5 international markets, South Korea seemed to suddenly burst into global consciousness with Bong Joon-ho’s smash 2019 hit.
Hollywood execs, box office watchers, and festival curators have long had their eyes on Korea, but even with such confirmed talent as Bong , Park Chan-wook, Lee Chang-dong and Kim Ki-duk, mainstream worldwide awareness was not especially rampant.One company that has arguably tipped the scales is CJ ENM. In 2019, a local film it released,in the market. It also had three of the total four Korean movies that landed in the Top 10 that year.
In announcing the investment, CEO Kang Ho Sung said CJ will “compete with global platform and media powerhouses”. Not that it wasn’t already a player outside of Korea. In 2020, CJ made a strategic investment in David Ellison’s Skydance Media, whose TV division is adapting 2019 Korean fantasy dramaas a series. This past May, it partnered with HBO Max to develop a competition series in Latin America.
CJ also owns leading series producer Studio Dragon, and the plan going forward is to form more production studios specializing in variety shows, film and animation, and to enter into further partnerships with content creators in the U.S., Europe and Asia. The company’s streaming platform affiliate, Tving, is eyeing 8 million paid global subscribers by 2023. A further priority will be placed on K-pop to produce more competition shows outside of Korea.