The world of Korean entertainment has come a long way since “Gangnum Style” set dancers galloping around the world nearly 15 years ago.
Korean content industry leaders on both sides of the Pacific gathered earlier this month at the London West Hollywood to take stock of the country’s rapid progress as an exporter of music, movies, TV shows, short-form material and other digital content that penetrating in traditional Hollywood.
The K-Entertainment Industry Summit was presented by CJ ENM, one of the handful of South Korean conglomerates that have forged a robust eco-system for the production and distribution of K-content. It’s part of a rising tide of influence from the Asian diaspora that is driving innovation across media, from vertical dramas to live-stream e-commerce to the webtoon graphic novel boom.
A case in point cited during the half-day summit was the boffo performance over the past year of Netflix’s “Kpop Demon Hunters,” an anime movie rooted in Korean folklore.
“Let’s get rid of the notion that it’s an outlier and just look at the brass tacks of what it is. It’s a great piece of storytelling with innovative animation,” said James Shin, president of HYBE America Studios. “They had the aspirations of the biggest musicals. How do we achieve that while also adhering to this whole idea of authenticity? It’s those little details. It’s the beauty and specificity” that made “Kpop Demon Hunters” stand apart.
Hyonbae Park, CEO of CJ ENM America, opened the invitation-only May 14 event with the observation that in his view, Year One for the K-content boom was 2012, when Psy electrified dance floors around the world with the smash hit “Gangnam Style.” That hit caught a wave on YouTube that let the world know how much art, media and culture was exploding in Korea.
Since 2012, Korean-language film “Parasite” took the Oscar for best picture and drama series “Squid Game” set records for Netflix. 2012 was also the first year CJ ENM hosted its KCON fan festival in Los Angeles, which has expanded to events in New York, Japan, Paris and Mexico City in recent years.
“When I first came to the United States in 1990, I lived in a small town in New Jersey. I was one of the very few Asians there. People came to me and asked, ‘Where are you from?’ And I would say ‘Korea,’ and many people [would] say, ‘Korea, is that a country?’… Fast forward to 2026, no one asks what Korea is anymore,” Hyonbae Park said. “Today, Korean entertainment is everywhere, and everybody loves it.”
That’s not to say that hurdles and cultural barriers don’t exist. K-pop as a genre has experienced inevitable ebbs after a decade-long boom.
“I think people who don’t know what K-pop is, they think it’s a very young niche. But if you look at its reach globally, and [how] it transcended across the globe, you can see that the age range is a bigger gap,” said John Kim, VP of marketing and distribution for UMG/Interscope Records. “It reaches young teens through the mid-40s and 50s. I grew up on K-pop, my son grows up on K-pop, so it’s generational now.”
For brands, K-pop related opportunities can be exciting because it is perceived to be on the cutting-edge of global youth culture.
“We looked at K-pop, and a particularly unique artist to bridge and connect us with a new generation with new values,” said Michael Traynor, VP of Hennessy for Moët Hennessy USA, which has partnered with former K-pop idol Jackson Wang.
“We saw extreme diversity, all different demographics, all different ages, and a fandom that again had bought in not just the experience, but they wanted more. So we delivered on that and created year after year different collaboration items that really spoke to Jackson and his fandom,” Traynor said. “Everything from special content to limited edition bottles, to even a song has allowed us to go much deeper with his audience than just a regular endorsement and shows the power that exists not only globally but here in the U.S.”
Tara Klee, director of global touring for AEG Presents, agreed that K-pop fans are trendsetters.
“They have a voice, and it’s really powerful,” she said. “There are a lot of opportunities with brands specifically and in sponsorships. K-pop fans are the dream for that, because they want to show up eight hours early and stand in line.”
Danielle Kreinik, senior VP of television for Jerry Bruckheimer Television, said the strength of the fandom around K-pop stars is attractive to producers and platforms. Bruckheimer TV is producing an English-language adaptation of the hit K-drama “Extraordinary Attorney Woo.”
“We would love to be able to attach a Korean star to something, especially somebody from the K-pop world. It’s really exciting to see that fanbase, because that fan base [is] what you want to bring with you when you’re bringing packages around,” she said.
Sera Tabb, head of global television for Webtoon Productions, cautioned that K-content fandom is not monolithic. Western adaptations of Asian content need to understand the essence of the piece. Fortunately, with digital and social media, there’s a 24/7 feedback loop.
“What we noticed is that each individual piece of IP has its own culture, because there’s a comment section on Webtoon. When you’re scrolling through each episode, at the end, people are making comments. For us, as the adapters…we can track in real time how people are responding to certain character moments, what engagement looks across the history of the comic, and that’s very meaningful for us,” Tabb said.
Jon Wax, executive VP of International Original Television for Disney Entertainment, cited Korea and Japan as big areas of focus for Disney’s global content strategy. The Mouse is investing in pan-Asian content with the goal of building up regional strength in a competitive marketplace for streaming content. He pointed to the success of a uniquely K-content property “Battle of Fates,” a game show in which Korean psychics and Tarot card readers and the like compete to
“Certainly, as a global streamer, if something tends to travel, that’s attractive to us, even if that’s not the goal for every [show],” Wax said. “Japan and Korea are two areas of focus for us. And that means even within the region, if not the world, we’re hoping that content can travel a little more to Southeast Asia and places we hope to get with more originals.”
(Pictured: Variety‘s Cynthia Littleton, Disney’s Jon Wax, Webtoon’s Sera Tabb and Jerry Bruckheimer Television’s Danielle Kreinik at the K-Entertainment Industry Summit in West Hollywood on May 14.)
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