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Korea’s studio system has developed and evolved over the last thirty years with the rise of its leading studios CJ ENM, Lotte, Showbox and then later with NEW and Plus M Entertainment. Hollywood studios and streamers led by Netflix have further accelerated the process in which Korea’s vertically integrated studio system has turned into one that is increasingly horizontal.  CJ ENM is not only active in film but is producing content for its streaming platform Tving through its subsidiary Studio Dragon, while it’s also heavily invested in Korea’s vibrant music sector with its own record divisions and channels such as M-Net.

The process of consolidation is also underway with companies merging – Lotte and the JoongAng Group that owns Megabox and Plus M Entertainment are coming together to form one company.  In June, Korea’s Fair Trade Commission approved the merger between Tving and other local streamer Wavve (a joint venture between broadcasters KBS, MBC, SBS and network provider SKT) on the condition that the subscription fees remain the same until 2026. 

The Korean government under the new Lee Jae Myung administration also announced this month a five-year strategy that aims to grow Korea’s content market to 300 trillion won ($216 billion) by 2030 to bring it into the world’s top five cultural industries. This will include a range of measures such as policy financing worth 10 trillion won, tax benefits, while the different areas of the industry will receive targeted support.

President Lee also appeared on Arirang TV as part of a panel in June that included the director of the hit Netflix film KPop Demon Hunters, Maggie Kang, as he underlined the importance of Korea’s cultural industry. He said, “Our all-out opportunity to properly display the power of Korean culture has just begun.”

Going forward, it will be a combination of government policy and also how the studio system evolves in what is a complex ecosystem that will come to shape the content industry. This week we will look at the major studios and how they are financing Korean content beginning with CJ ENM and Studio Dragon before turning to Lotte Cultureworks & Plus M, and then Showbox, and NEW.  

CJ ENM & Studio Dragon

One of Korea’s leading studios CJ ENM has positioned itself a powerful player in Korea’s content industry and it has demonstrated it can rapidly evolve as audiences’ tastes and viewing habits change. After entering the film industry in the mid-1990s, it has financed and distributed some of Korea’s most seminal films including Bong Joon Ho’s Oscar-winning Parasite (2019). It also (along with Lotte and Megabox) built its own cinema chain CJ CGV playing  a pivotal role in creating the building blocks from which the industry has flourished.

In the 2010s while it remained an integral studio in the Korean film industry financing tentpoles such as Ode to My Father (2014) and The Admiral: Roaring Currents (2014), it was also turning to television series before Netflix entered the scene. An important moment came at the end of 2011 when channels JTBC, TV Chosun, MBN and Channel A were established following an amendment to the Media Law that deregulated Korea’s media market in 2009. While CJ’s channels (tvN, OCN) were launched before this date, this would have a transformative effect on Korean dramas laying the seeds for the boom in Korean content.  

This came in a couple of ways, firstly in terms of financing – the budgets of Korean dramas increased dramatically with Cable TV led by CJ ENM and JTBC. Netflix signaled its intentions for the Korean market with Kingdom (2019) that was budgeted at a whopping 35 billion won ($25m) but there were already signs the industry was heading this way with Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (2016) that aired on tvN and cost 15 billion won ($10.7m) to produce, while Mr. Sunshine (2018) that was a tvN series (and acquired by Netflix) was budgeted at 40 billion ($28.6m), the then most expensive drama to date.

Cable TV would also impact the kind of content that was being produced for television. It was prestige content with higher budgets but there were also dramas that would feature violent scenes that wouldn’t typically be allowed on terrestrial TV. Gritty dramas including Bad Guys (2014) that was aired on OCN echoed some of the traits seen in Korean films. Netflix and local streamers such as CJ’s tvN have produced content that is R-rated (Squid Game).

Key to CJ ENM’s success in cable television and streaming has been its subsidiary Studio Dragon (Mr. Sunshine) that was established in 2016 as a spin-off from CJ ENM’s drama division. CJ also acquired production studios including Culture Depot and Hwa&Dam Pictures (Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (2016)) that would come to form Studio Dragon, Korea’s most prolific production company.

At the Busan International Film Festival last year, CJ held a forum on navigating the new paradigm that included a panel with the CEOs of its major subsidiaries Studio Dragon,  CJ CGV and Tving signifying the importance it was placing on theatrical as well as streaming. There, the head of Studio Dragon Jang Kyung-ik stressed the need of having a new business model and “well made-premium content so the audience will keep coming back to us.”  

It was in Busan that the studio unveiled plans to continue to invest 1 trillion won ($716m) in its content annually with IP to encompass all its platforms for which Studio Dragon is an important part given the large amount of series it produces for its TV channels and streaming platform, while it continues to sell content to Netflix. Last year, Studio Dragon encountered much success with Queen of Tears (2024) that cost 56 billion won ($40.1m) to produce and was a hit on tvN with ratings of 25.85 percent for its concluding episode. It also performed strongly internationally on Netflix clocking up more than 370 million hours during its broadcast run in March and April of 2024.

Lotte Cultureworks & JoongAng

Like CJ ENM Lotte as a major conglomerate entered the film industry in the 1990s. Its involvement in film came when the other Chaebols (Family-owned conglomerates) including Samsung departed owing to the IMF crisis presenting these companies with an opportunity. Lotte built its own cinemas with its first one in Ilsan in 1999 and developed its distribution label (Lotte Entertainment) in 2003 and has since been involved in an array of films including the tentpoles Along with the Gods (2017). Both Lotte Cinema and Lotte Entertainment were put under the Lotte Cultureworks brand when the two subsidiaries were spun-off from Lotte Shopping in 2018.

Plus M Entertainment came later in the 2010s, it was established as Cinus Entertainment in 2010 before it changed its name in 2014 when Cinus that was owned by a subsidiary of the Joongang Group merged with the multiplex chain Megabox.

The Joongang Group has become one of the leading players in Korea’s media industry.  Under its media label, Jcontentree, it owns Megabox, Plus M Entertainment and the production company SLL (formerly JTBC studios)).  The group also runs a daily newspaper, JoongAng Ilbo.  Furthermore, the JoongAng Group acquired The Playtime Group that run indoor playgrounds in 2022 that reflects how the multiplexes are attempting to lure audiences into their venues by offering other activities.

The tentatively agreed merger between Lotte and the JoongAng Group is indicative of how much the industry has changed in the wake of Covid-19 and the platform revolution with the film industry at around 60 percent to the level it was pre-pandemic. This would be the first time two competing leading studios in Korea have come to form a joint venture that has the potential to have a seismic impact on the industry. Collectively they would have over 1,600 screens in the country making them the country’s biggest exhibitor and owing to their significant resources in film and TV production, they are also poised to be a major player in the production of content and IP that can be utilized for different platforms.

Plus M’s forthcoming titles include Na Hong-jin’s Hope and the English-language Pig Village starring Don Lee, while Lotte’s slate includes Omniscient Reader (2025) that was released in the summer, and the animation Your Letter (2025), which hits screens in Korea on October 1 ahead of the Chuseok (thanksgiving) holiday.

Showbox

Owned by the Orion Group (famous for its Choco pies), Showbox that was founded in 1999 has limited its titles to around half a dozen a year even during the 2010s when studios like CJ could have more than double that. But it has continued to produce films that have worked with audiences – many of which have hit over 10 million admissions (The Host (2006)), Assassination (2015), A Taxi Driver (2017)).

Owing to its high returns on investment that hit over 30 percent in the mid-2010s, Korea Asset Investment Securities launched a private equity fund of 6 billion won in 2017 that would last a period of five years. Investment capital had been used for individual titles, but this was significant because it was a fund specifically for Showbox films.

While the pandemic has presented challenges for all the studios, Showbox that relies heavily on theatrical has been vulnerable. Nevertheless, reflecting its ability to produce titles that resonate with viewers it has continued to produce hits with Citizen of a Kind (2021) and Exhuma (2024) that amassed close to 12 million admissions.  It also remains committed to theatrical with Yeon Sang-ho’s 20 billion won budgeted action-thriller Colony starring Ji Chang-wook, Jun Ji-hyun and Koo Kyo-hwan due out in 2026.

Still, the studio has also turned its attention to streaming content, all be it more cautiously than some of its competitors. Its first drama Itaewon Class (2020) that aired on JTBC and was made available worldwide on Netflix was a hit both domestically and internationally. It hit ratings in Korea of 18 percent, and it was also behind The Witch (2025) that aired on Channel A.

It is co-producing the upcoming Disney + period drama Delusion directed by Han Jae-rim (who has worked with Showbox on Emergency Declaration (2021) and The Face Reader (2013)) that is a bigger gamble budgeted at 45 billion won ($32.3m). Starring Bae Suzy and Kim Seon-ho and shot by Hong Kyung-pyo (Parasite) it is set to be one of the most eagerly awaited dramas of 2026.

NEW (Next Entertainment World)

Similarly, without a streaming platform, NEW has depended on theatrical that turned it into one of the best performing studios of the 2010s. It was at the forefront of the film industry’s recovery after a downturn in the 2000s. In 2013 alone, it was responsible for several hits: Miracle in Cell No.7 (2013), The Attorney (2013), Cold Eyes (2013), Hide and Seek (2013) and New World (2013).

Tellingly, however, it was the first Korean studio to strike deals with Netflix. Pandora (2016) was the first Korean film to be sold to Netflix, other NEW titles to be Netflix Originals (outside Korea) included Steel Rain (2017) and The Chase (2017). It also distributed Bong Joon Ho’s Okja (2017) when Korea’s major multiplexes (CJ CGV, Lotte Cinemas and Megabox) refused to screen it.

NEW has also been quick at adapting, it was producing television shows in the mid-2010s with the very popular Descendants of the Sun (2016) that completed filming before it was aired on television. This is now more common in the streaming era.

The company has continued to attract investment with $52 million from the Chinese media company Huace Media in 2014. In 2021 it secured 34.1 billion ($24.5m) from investors including KT Skylife and a further 22 billion won ($15.8m) in 2022. Significantly, in 2021 it signed a five-year contract with Disney + to produce together at least one title per year that began with Disney’s first Korean-language series Rookie Cops (2022) produced by NEW’s subsidiary Studio&NEW.

The partnership’s most significant series was undoubtedly Moving (2023) based on Kang Full’s webcomic that became the streaming platform’s most watched Korean title confirming to them the potential of Korean content. It also won several accolades including the Grand Prize at the Blue Dragon Series awards.  

NEW, therefore, has situated itself as major player in the industry collaborating with the streamers as well as producing content for theaters. It also financed and distributed My Daughter is a Zombie (2025) that was the most viewed film of the summer selling 5 million tickets.

Written by Jason Bechervaise

Edited by kofic