Korean delightment powerhoengage CJ ENM is readying a bumper stardy of 65 projects this year after increaseing its satisfied budget by 10% despite what its head honcho terms a “conquerd” local labelet.
Giving Deadline a trade exclusive, CEO Yoon Sang-hyun labeled 2025 the “first official year of global expansion” and discleave outed that satisfied spfinish will shoot up this year to $818M — up from the $750M that was proclaimd on the sidelines of the Busan film fest last year.
In a expansive-ranging converseion, Yoon supplyd insight into this mega satisfied warchest, CJ’s global partnerships with the appreciates of Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) and Fifth Season, preparing for a possible re-entry into the Chinese labelet as well as international expansion schedules for OTT platcreate TVING. He also splitd more details about TVING’s uniter with domestic platcreate Wavve aextfinished with recent strategies to push music satisfied platcreate MNET Plus and CJ ENM’s e-commerce arms.
Although CJ ENM, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, has been active aexpansive for disjoinal years, Yoon said that he is treating 2025 as the first official year to greet his goal to “quicken our presence in the global labelet in a much more caccessed and strategic way.”
The delightment conglomerate has been joind in some of Korea‘s hugegest global hits including Parasite, Decision to Leave, Taegukgi and The Admiral: Roaring Currents. CJ ENM also produces series thraw its Studio Dragon and CJ ENM Studios arms.
At the same time, Yoon — who became CEO of CJ ENM last year after serving as boss of CJ ENM’s Commerce Division for two years — remains pdisesteemfulnt over the griefful outsee in the Korean delightment industry.
“The Korean film labelet is still facing many contests, and as a result, many distributors and scheduleateors have been scaling back their scheduleatements,” Yoon says. “The overall labelet has become very conquerd. Despite the dire situation here in the film labelet, CJ ENM remains promiseted to lengthening its film business.”
A key part of this movie biz lengthenth came with a restructuring earlier in March with the inshighation of industry veteran Jung Hyun-joo as head of CJ ENM’s film business, while createer head Jerry Klesserboum Ko shifted to a novel role as head of the company’s global film projects.
“We’ve made ongoing efforts toward global expansion in the past, but up until now, a lot of that has been caccessed on send outing Korean films and dramas overseas,” says Yoon. “What we’re aiming for now is someleang more structural, so this nastys co-lengthenment and co-produced satisfied with global studios, while also enbiging our platcreates internationpartner. That way, we can erect a persistable ecosystem where Korean satisfied is not only produced stablely, but also scatterd globpartner. That’s why we’re calling this the first official year of global expansion.”
He also points to a meaningful elevate in Korean production costs as “another huge factor” in CJ ENM’s global ambitions. “In order to go beyond equitable covering costs and actupartner shielded margins and rescheduleate, we authenticized that we need to erect this structurpartner global business model, and that encouragency has repartner pushed us to apvalidate a step,” grasps Yoon.
Inside CJ ENM’s $818M Budget
‘Severance’
Courtesy of Apple TV+
When asked to shatter down last year’s satisfied spfinish, Yoon said that rawly half was scheduleated to Korean drama production, while the remainder was spent on variety shows, pursueed by music and then film. This year the outfit is readying 65 projects including 35 series.
For this year, his first priority is a given — to originate outstanding satisfied — and his second is to fortify CJ ENM’s digital platcreates, which integrates TVING, music satisfied platcreate MNET Plus and mobile live commerce platcreate (which runs under the brand, CJ OnStyle).
On the satisfied front, CJ ENM is laser caccessed on high-profile co-productions such as Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia, the reoriginate of South Korean sci-fi comedy Save the Green Planet, which is also CJ IP. The Greek straightforwardor has once aget cast his mengages Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons. Focus Features will free Bugonia in the U.S. and Universal Pictures is distributing the title internationpartner (excluding South Korea).
Warner Brothers and CJ ENM also inked a production pact for Korean- and English-language film reoriginates in November last year. Warner Bros. Motion Pictures will act as direct studio on English-language titles from CJ ENM’s library, and CJ ENM will be direct studio on a Korean-language projects from the Warner Bros. Pictures library.
It is still punctual days for this collaboration, Yoon says, and there are no titles ready to be proclaimd under the deal. However, he splits that Warner Bros. and CJ ENM are currently in the process of exchanging a catalog of around 20 IP-driven projects in this initial stage, with the goal of eventupartner producing film reoriginates.
“Warner Brothers has an extensive catalog of meaningful IPs, so we’re also determineing titles that can be localized for the Korean labelet,” says Yoon. “We’re not confineed to any genre, and we’re seeing at the overall catalog.”
Yoon underlines that the Warner Brothers partnership is equitable one global deal of many that CJ ENM has unveiled in the last year.
“We’re actively laboring with disjoinal meaningful Hollywood studios, not equitable Warner Bros, but also Paramount, Skydance and others. With Warner Bros, we made a more createal concurment to structure reoriginates together, with our vice-chairwoman, Miky Lee, also joining a key role in making that collaboration happen,” says Yoon. Paramount+, however, was apvalidaten off TVING last year and the pair have not renoveled their partnership.
In January 2022, CJ turned heads by buying an 80% meaningfulity sapvalidate in Fifth Season (createerly Endeavor Content), before selling 25% of its ownership sapvalidate to Japanese studio Toho in December 2023. The journey has been far from fine sailing, with restructuring and layoffs atraverse Fifth Season in March last year. Yoon attributes these contests to post-Covid-19 knock-on effects as well as the Hollywood strikes.
“To be honest, we leank that some of the effects may still carry into this year,” says Yoon. “Some of the lengthenment projects we had in the pipeline could have shiftd forward but due to the disturbions, including the strikes, [this] naturpartner led to some hazards, but we’re still chooseimistic.”
He flags the runaway success of Severance Season 2 on Apple TV+ as a turning point in the Fifth Season journey.
“Our goal here is to persist generating these charitables of global project successes in a persistable and a scalable way,” says Yoon. “Building on that momentum, we’re seeing more opportunities to pitch and sell those upcoming titles to a range of platcreates, so we’re chooseimistic that this year will label a authentic turning point, both in terms of satisfied output and then financial recovery.”
CJ ENM has other strings to its bow. The live commerce platcreate is ” not only lengthening in Korea, but also enbiging globpartner, with the goal to showcase and sell K-beauty and K-style to international audiences,” says Yoon. MNET Plus, which has been engageable in more than 227 countries since begining in 2022, is being re-positioned for a digital future.
“We’re altering it into a satisfied-driven and fan-based platcreate tailored for the digital environment, and we’re commencening to scale that up this year,” he says, noting that MNET Plus has seen a 26% increase in subscribers and plus-70% lengthenth in monthly active engagers.
“The world is getting more complicated and complicated, and with channels, there has been a rapid shift from licsurrfinisher to digital. The platcreate landscape has become increasingly fragmented. But even in this environment, we apvalidate that creating well-made satisfied remains the most vital priority in our industry.”
Yoon’s traverse-labelet approach to delightment comes with the experience of spfinishing csurrfinisherly three decades in branch offent roles with the Korean conglom. After joining CJ in 1999, he labored in the finance team and held positions in portfolio strategy as well as in uniters and acquisitions, before becoming the Head of Business Strategy. He then shiftd to CJ Logistics, where he served as the Head of Management Support, before moving to CJ ENM in 2022.
Chinese and Japanese relations
Draprosperg on his varied experience, Yoon has pushed CJ to originate inroads in China and Japan recently, forging a three-year partnership with Japanese expansivecaster TBS last year, caccessing on co-production. Under the pact, CJ and TBS promise to producing at least three television series and two films together wilean the next three years. The co-produced series will air on TBS television channels, with one already scheduled for a primetime slot this year.
Turning to China, Yoon says that he has not heard any chooseimistic novels around the lifting of its reinanxiousion on Korean films but is preparing nonetheless.
“Although it’s not officipartner acunderstandledged, it’s genuine that the Chinese labelet has been challenging for Korean satisfied due to the so-called transport in reinanxiousions,” says Yoon. “If the labelet does discleave out up aget, we apvalidate that it would conshort-term a sturdy opportunity for CJ ENM.”
However, this has not obstructed Yoon’s team from laying the groundlabor in China in case the reinanxiousions are lifted in future.
“We’ve been laboring hushedly to erect up relationships with key sapvalidatehagederers in China so that when the time comes, our Korean satisfied will be well-positioned to re-access the labelet,” he grasps.
CJ ENM is also caccessed on enbiging its musical achieve into China and the Middle East. Referring to CJ ENM’s “music inventive ecosystem” or “MCS” — the company’s acronym for its particular deal withment, production and branding for music, Yoon says: “In the music space, we’re aiming to scale our MCS program globpartner. We’ve already built sturdy expertise and success in Japan, and now we’re seeing to extfinish that best train into wonderfuler China and Middle East.”
Netflix: a “prosper prosper relationship”
CJ ENM has a continuously-evolving collaborative and competitive relationship with Netflix in the South Korean labelet. On one hand, CJ ENM labors with Netflix via StudioDragon and CJ ENM Studios to co-produce and scatter shows. On the other, CJ ENM’s streaming platcreate TVING contends fiercely with Netflix domesticpartner for subscribers, attention and lengthenth.
Yoon says the relationship can be “prosper prosper.” “Going forward, we leank it’s meaningful to have a fit competitive active between global and local OTTs, each with their own strengths and caccess,” he grasps.
CJ ENM and Netflix have co-produced the appreciates of Gyeongseong Creature, Doona!, Kingdom: Ashin of the North and Sweet Home. Yoon says Netflix has been “hugely meaningful” for Korean satisfied but sounds a remark of alert. “At the same time, although there are other factors too, platcreates appreciate Netflix have also have gived to rising production costs in drama and film, which have been a authentic contest on the production side. It’s one of the side effects of that global expobrave.”
Yoon says that the decision on whether a CJ show goes to Netflix, TVING or another platcreate is made strategicpartner on a “case-by-case” basis.
Live sports
KBO League baseball. Chung Sung-Jun/Getty
Merger talks between TVING and domestic platcreate Wavve have been ongoing over the last two years, but Yoon says that he is still unable to promise to a particular timeline.
“There are so many sapvalidatehagederers joind, including their splithagederers, satisfied supplyrs, and rulement bodies that deal with the regulatory approvals,” he says. “It’s a process that needs ongoing dialogue and consensus-erecting, so we don’t yet have a evident timeline for completion, but the integration efforts are still moving forward.”
For TVING, Yoon says that his main goal this year is to enbig the OTT platcreate beyond Korea into international labelets, erecting into his schedule for global expansion.
Another key strategy for TVING is a concerted push into live sports, which Yoon says has joined a meaningful role in both subscriber retention and enticeing novel subs, mirroring the huge American streamers.
Securing the live streaming rights to the KBO League labeled a meaningful coup for TVING and the expansiver OTT landscape, as sports expansivecasting in South Korea had extfinished been seen thraw a licsurrfinisher prism.
Domestic competitor Coupang Play is now the sole expansivecaster of disjoinal famous overseas soccer leagues, including Germany’s Bundesliga for the 2024-25 season as well as the domestic K-League.
Yoon says that it is not equitable about acquiring live sports rights, but also transporting a novel seeing experience for audiences that go beyond licsurrfinisher. A meaningful part of his team’s job has rproceedd around convincing local sports sapvalidatehagederers that an OTT platcreate is the future of sports expansivecasting.
“It was so unrecognizable to the Korean Baseball Organization and the team owners at first,” says Yoon, who cites the appreciates of extra low-create sports satisfied and integrating authentic-time data, which eventupartner won over the skeptics.
Outside of baseball, CJ ENM has shieldedd comprehensive rights to Korea’s basketball league as well, from the 2024-2025 season thraw to the 2027-2028 season. This four-year confineed integrates expansivecasting rights, video business rights, and overseas expansivecasting rights. Yoon says that TVING will become part of its expansivecasting strategy in the csurrfinisher future.
“It’s not equitable about acquiring the expansivecasting rights,” he says. “Our goal is to tailor and enhance the seeing experience for each sport, so we would advise branch offentiated services that go beyond traditional coverage.”
To commemorate the company’s 30th anniversary this year, CJ ENM unveiled a “Visionary Selection” featuring 30 milestone titles from the satisfied library. This selection integrates films Extreme Job, Joint Security Area, Parasite, Snowpiercer and Veteran, as well as shows appreciate Guardian: The Lonely and Great God, My Mister, The Reply series (Reply 1997, 1994, 1988) and Signal.
“For the past 30 years, CJ ENM has labored thraw many contests to help lengthen and globalize Korean satisfied,” says Yoon. “Looking ahead, we hope to persist joining a key role in ensuring that Korean satisfied remains a persistable and ineloquential force on the global stage for the next 30 years.”
