How Netflix plans on domination with Korean dramas
Streamer wants to create unique shows for each country
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA >> They met in a 20th-floor conference room in Seoul named for one successful project with Korean talent — “Okja,” a 2017 film of one girl's devotion to a genetically modified super pig — to discuss what they hoped would become another hit.
Quickly, the gathering of Netflix's South Korea team became an unhappy focus group, with a barrage of nitpicks and critiques about the script for a coming-of-age fantasy show.
One person said the storyline pulled in too many fantastical — and foreign — elements instead of focusing on character and plot. The creative components struck another person as too hard to grasp, and out of touch.
Finally, the executive who was championing the project offered a diagnosis: The writer had watched too much Netflix.
Inspired by the streaming service's success in turning Koreanlanguage shows into international hits, the writer wanted this show to go global, too, and thought more far-fetched flourishes would appeal overseas.
The fix, the executive said, was the opposite. The script needed to “Koreanize” the show, ground it in local realism and turn some foreign characters into Korean roles.
It's a turbulent time in Hollywood, with television and movie actors now on strike, joining the screenwriters who have picketing since May. Netflix has become a focal point of frustration for the ways streaming services have upended the traditional television model.
Amid this uncertainty, Netflix remains locked in its goal: It wants to dominate the entertainment world, but it is pursuing that ambition one country at a time. Instead of creating shows and movies that appeal to all 190 countries where the service is available, Netflix is focusing on content that resonates with a single market's audience.
The overseas content has taken on even greater significance with Hollywood effectively shut down. The comedies and dramas produced overseas, like the ideas being decided on in that Seoul conference room, could be some of the only new content on offer.
In April, before the writers went on strike, Ted Sarandos, one of Netflix's co-CEOs, said he hoped it wouldn't come to that — but also promised that viewers wouldn't be without options. “We have a large base of upcoming shows and films from around the world,” he said.
That large base comes from around the world but is specific to each country it comes from.
“When we're making shows in Korea, we're going to make sure it's for Koreans,” said Minyoung Kim, Netflix's vice president of content in Asia. “When we're making shows in Japan, it is going to be for the Japanese. In Thailand, it's going to be for Thai people. We are not trying to make everything global.”
Netflix's 2023 Emmy nominations tell one story of its ambitions: It received nods Wednesday for its prestige drama “The Crown,” its comedy-drama “Beef,” and its reality shows “Love Is Blind” and “Queer Eye.”
In addition to that wide spectrum of English-language programming, Netflix's ambition is to expand in relatively untapped regions such as Asia and Latin America, beyond its saturated core markets in the United States and Europe, where subscriber growth is slowing. It is allocating more of its $17 billion annual content budget to expanding its foreign language programming and attracting customers abroad.
But the company is also betting that a compelling story somewhere is compelling everywhere, no matter the language.
This year, Netflix developed “The Glory,” a binge-worthy revenge saga about a woman striking back against childhood bullies, which cracked the Top 5 mostwatched non-English-language TV shows ever on the service. Before that, at one point “Extraordinary Attorney Woo,” a feel-good show about a lawyer with autism, was in the weekly Top 10 chart in 54 countries. Last year, 60% of Netflix subscribers watched a Koreanlanguage show or movie.
Asia, Netflix's fastest-growing region, is a key battleground because customers watch a higher percentage of programming in their native tongues. Netflix already has shows in more than 30 Asian languages.
That's where Kim, 42, comes in. Kim joined Netflix in 2016. Her job is, essentially, to help Netflix do something that has never been done before: build a truly global entertainment service with shows in every market, while selling Americans on the appeal of foreign-language content. If she is daunted by the demand, she doesn't show it.
She is chatty and direct, with an almost encyclopedic knowledge of Korean television dramas. But perhaps most importantly for her task, she is the woman who gave the Netflix-watching world “Squid Game.”
`Don't expect miracles'
In 2016, Netflix rented Dongdaemun Design Plaza, a Seoul landmark and futuristic exhibition space, for a red-carpet affair featuring the stars of one of its biggest shows at the time: “Orange Is the New Black.”
The hors d'oeuvres were served, on theme with the show, on food trays meant to mimic prison. Netflix was arriving in South Korea's entertainment industry with a big splash. But the tongue-in-cheek humor felt inhospitable and culturally out of touch, according to industry people who attended. It left the impression of an American company that did not understand Korea.
It was a clumsy start. A few months later, when Kim began in her role as Netflix's first content executive in Asia with a focus on South Korea, she warned the company's executives: “Don't expect miracles.”
Kim said she needed to make Netflix feel less foreign and sell creators on why they should work with the company.
Early in her tenure, she came across a movie script called “Squid Game” by Hwang Dong-hyuk, a respected local filmmaker. He had written it a decade earlier and could never find a studio to finance it. She said she immediately loved the irony of a gory “death game” thriller based around traditional Korean children's games. She thought the concept might work better as a TV show, allowing for more character development than a two-hour film.
“Squid Game” changed everything. It became the most-watched show on Netflix, and it spurred interest in other Korean content. In April, to coincide with a visit to the United States by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, Netflix said it was planning to invest $2.5 billion in Korean shows and movies in the next four years, which is double its investment since 2016.
After decades of Hollywood's delivering blockbusters to the world, Netflix is trying to flip the model. Sarandos said that “Squid Game” proved that a hit show could emerge from anywhere and in any language and that the odds of success for a Hollywood show versus an international show were not that different.
“That's really never been done before,” he said at an investor conference in December. “Locally produced content can play big all over the world, so it's not just America supplying the rest of world content.”
Vision come to life
The increased expectations are apparent throughout Netflix's high-rise office in Seoul. The meeting rooms are named after its prominent Korean movies and shows. In the canteen, a human-size replica of the doll from “Squid Game” looms over a selection of Korean snacks and instant noodles.
Kim's vision of creating a diverse slate of Korean shows has come to life. “Physical: 100,” a gladiator-style game show in which contestants fight for survival and a cash prize, was in the Top 10 of non-English shows for six weeks. This year, at least three Korean shows have been among the Top 10 foreign language shows every week.
“It's exciting, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel the pressure,” said Don Kang, Netflix's vice president of content in South Korea, who has succeeded Kim in overseeing South Korea.
Kang, who is soft-spoken with a baby face, joined in 2018 after heading international sales at CJ ENM, a Korean entertainment conglomerate. When he started, Netflix was still operating out of a WeWork office.
He said that before Netflix, he thought there wouldn't be much international interest in Korean reality shows or shows that weren't romantic comedies.
“I was very happy to be proven wrong,” Kang said.
Kim said she thought that audiences would tolerate work that defied their expectations or values when it was foreign, but that it must be authentic when it was local.
So far, that philosophy has been successful. “Squid Game” proves that. But it also shows the new challenge that awaits Netflix — once something is a global hit, there are global expectations.
Leonardo DiCaprio is a fan, and Hwang, the writer-director, even teased that the Hollywood A-lister could join the “games,” a boost that most people chasing global domination might find hard to resist. But Netflix did manage it — for now.
Last month, when the cast was announced, it featured all Korean actors.