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The accomplishments of the ‘Korean-made’ feature animation The Nut Job will be long remembered. The Korean audience may see this film as a large-scaled blockbuster costing KRW 40 billion, but the moment this number’s converted into USD 42 million, The Nut Job is transformed into a successful medium-budget film made by an Asian producer that raked in USD 64 million in the North American market, and USD 56 million worldwide since its release in January, 2014. The Nut Job clearly made history for Korean cinema not only by its box office numbers, but the course it took.

 

AHN Su-won, WARA PICTURES CEO played a key part in The Nut Job’s North American release when she was working for Redrover. As a speaker at the 4th KOFIC Global Forum, she continued to emphasize a “sustainable future for Korean animation”. On September 3rd, we met with AHN Su-won to hear her views on the present state and future of Korean co-production animations.

 

 

In retrospect, I’ve been really working hard. It was physically and psychologically demanding to struggle alone in the U.S. field. But with this came a number of offers following The Nut Job. In order to make the most of my experiences, I realized I shouldn’t keep them to myself. I acquired this sense of responsibility, and since I started my own company, WARA PICTURES, I’ve been slowly dealing with new challenges. And like a destiny, I came across a script that would help me take a step further from my experience on The Nut Job.

 

 

I often define it as a ‘beautiful challenge’, ‘blissful adventure’, and ‘happy journey’. They all may seem quite nice and positive words, but challenge, adventure and journey are concepts that embrace the entire emotional spectrum from happiness, anger to sadness. I often met a number of unexpected opportunities during the course of enduring things when the goings got tough and we had to eliminate obstacles. I think you get to prove your ability by grabbing such opportunities. And that’s how The Nut Job became a miracle. Of course, these results were not achieved in a day. It was possible with the help of our entire crew whose focused efforts enabled the overall process to run smoothly.

 

 

 

Although I don’t deny this, I think this can be understood from a different point-of-view. I don’t believe that Koreans intrinsically fall short in creativity. Imagination is limited by experience. We’re not that experienced in the field of animation creativity. And before The Nut Job, we never really enjoyed much exchange with a larger market, meaning we have yet to show our creative abilities to the fullest.

 

At this point, it’s extremely important to find the right partner who can complement what we lack throughout the entire process of conception to completion of an animation. With the experience and the accumulation of data, I’m sure we can present good animation work to the worldwide market. Since it takes 3 to 5 years to complete a feature animation work, there’s no need to rush things.

 

 

A number of analyses on the key factors of our success have come out. But the most important thing is ‘quality’. It’s what defines market accessibility. Most of the responses to our first overseas market pitch was “so this was made by an indie film production company?” The U.S. major studios and the indie producers work in a totally different structural league. In term of marketing, The Nut Job has walked through the A to Zs of wide-release distribution. Fortunately, our partnership with Open Road Films which ranks within the top 10 list of upper-middle-sized distributors, and our Canadian film production company was great.

 

In addition, there’s a definite demand for family-oriented contents. It’s actually easier to make a non-animated film, yet, production companies specializing in feature animations are hard to find. It would be good for our animation industry to discover a variety of different directions from the path that The Nut Job paved.

 

 

PSY did contribute to our success in the North American market. We did get a lot of flak from Korea for tapping into the PSY and Gangnam Style syndrome a few steps behind, but the response in North America was quite the contrary. The first day of release, children were dancing the horse dance of PSY as they were leaving theaters. We got a lot of questions about whether The Nut Job was really Korean-made. It was a pride thing for us to include a global brand like PSY as a character and his Gangnam Style in the film. The reputation of a recognized brand goes quite a long way in the Western cultural sphere. Our choice of distributor was based on serious contemplation as it was directly connected to sales. I’m glad the results turned out quite satisfactory.

 

 

 

This needs to be based on a long-term strategy. According to the current data, feature animations awaiting their chance to meet the public including titles delayed in both production and distribution, are total 20 to 30. These are resources that shouldn’t be taken lightly. I hope they all get their chance to become outstanding works that are showcased in theaters. And among them, some will strive to enter the North American market. This may be the reason why many pay attention to The Nut Job’s case and also why the industry is looking forward for Redrover to continue the success of The Nut Job with its following lineup, Spark and The Nut Job 2.

 

The project we’re currently working on is similar to The Nut Job in its approach which is aiming for a wide release in the North American market and successfully releasing a film made on a similar budget as The Nut Job. This may be our first goal for now, but in the long run, we hope WARA PICTURES can serve as a sustainable ‘pipeline’ for the Korean animation industry. A success case shouldn’t stop at just one project and one production company. I do hope that the path The Nut Job and WARA PICTURES paved can open larger roads to other Korean animations.

 

On a personal note, I don’t believe in rigidness getting in the way of a work to see the light of day. We can barely challenge a U.S. major film by joining forces. WARA PICTURES aspires to help those good at their jobs to show their abilities to the fullest. Because this is how we can make great works and make money.