Korea’s Baeksang Awards Topped by Lee Joon-ik and Yoo Jae-suk

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at LargeWiip, the independent studio behind recent HBO hit “Mare of Easttown” and Apple TV Plus’ breakout “Dickinson,” has been acquired by South Korean TV drama production firm JTBC Studios.JTBC Studios will take a majority ownership in wiip, while CAA, which had previously been the majority owner of the company, will now move to a minority stake.

South Korean entertainment powerhouse CJ ENM is eyeing a bigger role on the world stage, saying it will invest more than 5 trillion won ($4.5B) in content creation over the next five years. The company behind Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar winner Parasite and Fox’s I Can See Your Voice has already set aside 800B won ($721M) for productions this year, CEO Kang Ho-sung said at a press conference in Seoul today, according to the Yonhap news agency.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief‘F9’ enjoyed a second weekend at the front of the South Korean box office. It was joined by ‘Cruella’ in keeping the nationwide gross total over $6 million for a second week.Action franchise movie, “F9” grossed $3.21 million between Friday and Sunday, according to data from the Korean Film Council’s Kobis tracking service.

Naman Ramachandran Fremantle has acquired production rights to format “The Masked Dancer” in 29 territories across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.The dance guessing show is a spin-off format of “The Masked Singer” originally created by MBC in South Korea. It sees celebrity contestants wear head-to-toe costumes and face masks that conceal their identities, while performing a dance.

Bts is smooth as butter.

BTS took the stage at the 2021 Billboard Music Awards on Sunday to perform their brand new single, which they promised to ET would be even bigger than their hit, «Dynamite.» Appearing remotely from South Korea, RM, Jimin, Jin, Jungkook, J-Hope, V and Suga wore suave black suits and debuted new dance moves that perfectly fit their catchy single.

tasty new track, “Butter,” at the 2021 Billboard Music Awards on Sunday — and their ARMY of followers lapped it right up.The bouncy pop performance — beamed in from South Korea — featured members RM, Jin, SUGA, j-hope, Jimin, V and Jung Kook dancing and rapping in a summer-loving-ready mix that fans deemed “insane,” “PERFECCIÓN” and more.

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Barbra Streisand, they ain’t.But the boys of BTS are still capable of pulling off a summer-ready smoothie with their new single “Butter.”The latest single from the K-pop sensations, released on Friday, is another dose of fizzy fun from the South Korean septet.Even if you’ll forget about it as soon as the 2 minutes and 45 seconds are over.

2020’s awards to October.But now, one of music’s biggest nights — which gives fans the power to vote for their picks — is back on track, with a vengeance. The Weeknd, who was infamously snubbed by the Grammys and vowed to boycott them forever, is expected to make a big showing at this year’s awards.

Brave Girls are set to return with new music this June, their agency Brave Entertainment has confirmed.Eaelier today (May 18), South Korean news outlet Xsportsnews reported that the quartet are set to make a comeback in mid-June with new music. The publication also claimed that the girl group would be adopting a “summer queen” concept.Brave Entertainment later confirmed the report in a statement to Sports Kyunghyang.

Supergiant Games’ celebrated roguelike title Hades has reportedly received a PS4 rating by South Korea’s Game Rating and Administration Committee (GRAC).The original rating was first spotted and shared on May 15 by ResetEra forum member Modiz, who shared a translated screenshot of the listing.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“Spiral: From The Book of Saw” carved out the top spot at the South Korean box office over the weekend. But it was a thin slice of a painfully quiet weekend.Korea’s aggregate nationwide box office was just $2.60 million, almost unchanged from last week and within a whisker of being the smallest weekend total in three months.

Jay Park has reportedly collaborated with Wiz Khalifa on a new song.According to a report by South Korean news outlet Dailian, the former 2PM member will be releasing a song with Wiz Khalifa as part of 7SIX9 Entertainment’s DreamX Project. The track is slated for a July release, the publication claims.7SIX9 Entetrainment also recently dropped a teaser video for the collaboration, with the artist that will be working with Wiz Khalifa blurred out.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefBong Joon-ho, director of last year’s Oscar-winning “Parasite,” has announced that he is working on a Korean animated film about humans and deep water sea creatures.He had been working on the screenplay with Korean company 4th Creative Party since 2018. The script was completed in January.Bong is also at work on the script for an English-language film which is understood to be set between the U.K.

Wonho is back and he brought a friend in the new music video for “Ain’t About You”.

Wonho is back and he brought a friend in the new music video for “Ain’t About You”.

Jay Park has said that he wants to collaborate with South Korean boyband GOT7.Yesterday (May 11), Jay Park had briefly joined an Instagram Live session hosted by GOT7 member JAY B to congratulate the singer for his new record deal with Park’s label, H1GHR MUSIC. During the livestream, Park also talked about a possible collaboration with the K-pop boyband.“I swear, I won’t die without doing a collaboration with GOT7 and trend worldwide as ‘GOT8’,” Park told JAY B.