BTS Members Renew Contracts With Big Hit Music

NiziU is heading to South Korea!

It’s so hard to say goodbye, but sadly, several K-pop groups are disbanding for good.

Naman Ramachandran The Indonesian film industry is poised to spread its wings globally as the country’s filmmaking boom is the subject of a focus at the Busan International Film Festival. Films from the country now routinely get selected and win prizes at major international festivals. The local market in Indonesia, which has the fourth-largest population in the world with 277 million, is rapidly expanding with homegrown productions accounting for a significant share.

CUBE Entertainment boyband PENTAGON have left the agency, it has confirmed in an official statement.The group debuted under the label as a 10-member outfit in 2016 and continued as a nine-piece following the departure of E’Dawn – now known as soloist Dawn – in 2018.In the statement released today (October 9), CUBE announced the departure from the label of singers Yeo One and Yan An, and rappers Yuto, Kino and Wooseok. “We have held lengthy and honest conversations with the PENTAGON members ahead of the expiration of their contracts,” the statement read (translated by Koreaboo).“After careful considerations, we have concluded our exclusive contracts with Yeo One, Yan An, Yuto, Kino, Wooseok.

MONSTA X, GOT7 and Wanna One performed dance covers of songs by NewJeans, LE SSERAFIM and their own groups at a military event this weekend.ArmyFest (also known as Ground Forces Festival) is an annual “military cultural festival” hosted by the South Korean Army and features performances and parades alongside military-related displays.This year’s event featured MONSTA X’s Minhyuk, GOT7’s Jinyoung and former Wanna One members Ha Sungwoon and Ong Seongwu performing dance covers for the audience.

BTS’ Jungkook has announced details of his first solo concert, which will be titled ‘Golden Live On Stage’.The show will be held in the weeks following the release of the singer’s upcoming debut solo album, which is also called ‘Golden’.Jungkook will headline Seoul’s Jangchung Arena in Seoul, with the concert set to stream online for fans around the world. It will take place on November 20 at 8pm KST (11am GMT), with tickets available for fans who hold ARMY membership or who have purchased ‘Golden’ from the Weverse Shop.“Jungkook ‘Golden’ Live On Stage will feature performances of various tracks in the album,” a notice on Weverse read.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Korean sales agency Finecut has struck a raft of rights sales on upcoming fantasy-romance “Secret: Untold Melody.” The film, which will premiere at the upcoming Hawaii International Film Festival, tells the tale of a man whose promising piano career is cut short by a wrist injury. He returns to Korea and falls in love with a mysterious woman at his music college.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Netflix has given the green light to a new “Squid Game” slot machine — the streamer’s first licensing deal in the casino and gambling industry. The slot game is based on one of Netflix’s most popular shows of all time, the South Korean survival drama “Squid Game.” Built by gaming company Light & Wonder, it will integrate several iconic (and deadly) games from the show such as Red Light, Green Light; Tug of War; and the Glass Tile. Light & Wonder also will introduce a digital “Squid Game”-themed game featuring three bonus rounds based on the series.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival is back after a one-year hiatus with a rich mix of Arabic and international titles launching into the Middle East and plenty of promising projects from Arab countries set to be unveiled to prospective partners at its CineGouna industry side. The event launched in 2017 by Egyptian telecom billionaire Naguib Sawiris – whose brother Samih built the El Gouna resort in a swathe of desert near the tourist town of Hurghada 250 miles south of Cairo – was put on pause in 2022 ostensibly due to the country’s economic crisis following five editions during which fest co-founder Amr Mansi and chief Intishal Al Timimi had managed to rapidly put El Gouna on the international festival map while also making it a favourite with the local crowd.

Valerie Wu editor Elsie Choi, a film and TV development veteran who has worked for such producers as Dan Lin and Bruce Willis, has joined Los Angeles-based CJ ENM America as executive VP and head of scripted TV. CJ ENM is a South Korean entertainment company that has produced content such as Oscar-winning film “Parasite” and popular Korean fantasy drama series “Guardian: The Lonely and Great God.” Among the company’s recent productions are the romantic drama “Past Lives” with A24. It’s also the company behind the annual KCON Korean pop culture conference and concerts held in downtown Los Angeles in August.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Issues of cultural diversity, different Asian diaspora populations and the quest for the Asian cinematic identity came up for discussion on Thursday as the New Currents competition jury at the Busan International Film Festival prepared to get down to work. Filmmaker and academic Jung Sung-il, who is set as the jury president, appeared to invite a degree of dispute that might get the blood racing. “I have high hopes, hope for controversies and good conversations among the jurors,” he said in opening remarks.

In addition to her duties serving on the jury of Busan’s New Currents competition, U.S.-based producer Christina Oh will be meeting a group of Korean filmmakers at the festival to talk about upcoming film projects and attempt to build more bridges between the film industries of Korea and the U.S.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief K-pop star Suzy, playing a retired singer, dazzles Yang Se-jong as a freshman student in forthcoming K-Romance series “Doona!”. The Korean show will launch on Netflix on Oct.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Korea’s Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) has been through a fair amount of drama this year. 

Suga, a member of K-pop supergroup BTS, began fulfilling his mandatory military duty Friday as a social service agent, an alternative form of military service in the country.

Trailer has dropped for Netflix’s Squid Game reality series, which launches November 22 with record prize money of $4.56M.

Three members of the K-pop boy band Stray Kids were just involved in a car accident.

Thania Garcia BTS will be renewing their contracts under Big Hit Music, the seven-member South Korean boyband’s longtime label announced on Wednesday. With some of its members having enlisted in government-mandated military service, the label ensured fans that the band will continue to work with the Big Hit “on their future releases from 2025 onwards,” according to a statement shared by Big Hit’s parent company HYBE. “BigHit Music will take into consideration the military service status of some of the members and plans to sign with each BTS member sequentially,” their notice continued.

BTS have renewed their contracts with Big Hit Music, a subsidiary owned by South Korean media giant HYBE.This is according to a statement by Big Hit Music, as seen by several South Korean news outlets including Yonhap News Agency and Sports Chosun, following a decision by the company’s board of directors.Per Sports Chosun, the renewal of the BTS members’ contracts will not all happen at the same time. Instead, they will happen individually and sequentially, taking into account the military service status of the various members.“With the renewal of their contracts, we hope will be able to share with everyone a full group promotional period for BTS in 2025,” the K-pop agency said in the statement, as translated by Koreaboo.

Big Hit Music trainees have opened up about the members of BTS and whether the septet have changed since their debut.In a new interview with Korea Now, the English-language YouTube channel of South Korean news outlet Yonhap News Agency, former Big Hit Music trainees Kim Ji-hoon and Hwang Ji-hwan opened up about their experiences at the K-pop agency and training alongside the now-BTS members.Kim spoke about how he sometimes watches clips of BTS on YouTube, nothing that the septet are “the same as they used to be” when they were all trainees together. He added that, even then, he thought BTS leader RM “had leadership qualities”.