Hong Kong
CNN
—
Netflix is planning its largest-ever lineup of South Korean content material, with 34 new and returning titles set to roll out this 12 months.
The streaming big made the announcement Tuesday. It mentioned that viewers information confirmed “over 60% of all Netflix members” watched Korean titles final 12 months.
The practically three dozen new applications embrace a spread of tv sequence and movies, which run the gamut from thrillers to dramas. The corporate declined to reveal how a lot it deliberate to spend.
In 2021, firm executives mentioned Netflix
(NFLX) deliberate to speculate about $500 million into Korean content material, on prime of $700 million already spent since 2016.
The transfer underscores how Netflix is more and more doubling down on Korean content material as followers worldwide proceed to buzz over it.
Final 12 months, the California big introduced the launch of roughly 25 Korean titles — on the time “our largest quantity up to now,” it mentioned in an announcement then. The earlier 12 months, the corporate unveiled 15.
“The worldwide recognition of Ok-content has continued apace over 2022,” Don Kang, the corporate’s vice chairman of Korean content material, mentioned in a quick assertion.
“Over the past 12 months, Korean sequence and movies have recurrently featured in our International Prime 10 listing in additional than 90 international locations, and three of Netflix’s most-watched reveals ever are from Korea.”
A kind of reveals is “Squid Recreation,” which reveals contestants enjoying lethal youngsters’s video games to win money prizes. The survival drama grew to become the corporate’s prime present worldwide in 2021.
Final 12 months, “Extraordinary Lawyer Woo,” a sequence that adopted titular character Woo Younger-woo as “a beginner at a prime legislation agency and a lady on the autism spectrum,” additionally shot to the highest of the streaming platform’s charts for a number of weeks.
The forthcoming titles for 2023 embrace six Korean motion pictures, beginning with the debut of a sci-fi thriller, “JUNG-E,” on Friday, in keeping with Netflix.
It would additionally embrace new reveals akin to “Destined With You,” a romance between a hotshot lawyer and a civil servant, in addition to the most recent installment of returning sequence “Candy House,” which depicts a teen’s battle to outlive as people flip into monsters.
Netflix is more and more producing unique worldwide content material and leaning on prospects abroad as its progress in North America slows.
Netflix added 1.4 million paid subscribers within the Asia Pacific within the third quarter, making it the corporate’s quickest rising area, in keeping with its most up-to-date earnings.
Different media behemoths, akin to Disney
(DIS), are additionally betting massive on Korean content material. The corporate has just lately greenlit scores of latest titles from South Korea, together with a slate of unique reveals with Ok-pop band BTS.
