JTBC’s New Look as Studio LuluLala Heralds Plans to Expand to the Next Level
variety.comPatrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefKorean TV powerhouse JTBC is upping its game and changing its name in order to stay at the forefront of the worldwide Korean content explosion.While the parent broadcast group will keep the JTBC monicker, its 15-strong cluster of production companies have been renamed Studio LuluLaLa, or SLL, instead of the prosaic JTBC Studios.
The word ‘Lululala’ is used in Korea to express joy and adventure. And it translates easily enough.More persuasive is the KRW3 trillion ($2.4 billion) that SLL is now promising to put into content production over the three years 2022-2024.That number, revealed at a press event this week, compares with the $500 million that Netflix committed to spending in Korea in 2021 and the $4.4 billion that CJ ENM (owner of Studio Dragon, Endeavor Content and the new CJ ENM Studio) says it will spend over the five years between 2021 and 2025. (Regional research firm Media Partners Asia this month forecast that Netflix would increase its investment and pump $750 million into Korean content in the current year.) SLL’s subsidiary companies include Climax Studio (Netflix’s “Hellbound” “D.P.”); Drama House (“SKY Castle,” “The World of the Married”; Zium Content (“Itaewon Class” and the upcoming Korean adaptation of “Money Heist”); and Film Monster (Netflix hit “All of Us Are Dead” and 2018 feature film “Intimate Strangers”).Already powerful, SLL sees itself as growing within Korea and, increasingly, overseas.
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