Film Studio Sets Up Studio & NEW Production Wing
Korean film investor and distributor
Next Entertainment World (NEW) has set its first internally produced feature film project with its subsidiary Studio & NEW. The period battle film
Ahn-si-seong (working title) will be helmed by
KIM Kwang-sik, who previously made the gangster romcom
My Dear Desperado (2010) and the media thriller
Tabloid Truth (2014).
Ahn-si-seong will take place during Korea’s Three Kingdoms Era, when the country, then called Goguryeo, was in the midst of repelling an invasion from the Tang armies of China. The film will document the siege of Ahnsi during the 7th century.
Production company
Soojak film will co-produce the project, which has a reported price tag of KRW 15 billion (USD 13.2 million). Casting is underway and the production is expected to kick off at some point this summer.
NEW, which is responsible for financing and distributing some of Korea’s biggest films, such as
Miracle in Cell No.7 (2013),
The Attorney (2013) and
TRAIN TO BUSAN (2016), recently ventured into TV production with the popular show
Descendants of the Sun. They set up the Studio & NEW production arm last September in order to ramp up their internal productions.
Ahn-si-seong will mark the company's first film venture.
JANG Kyung-ik, who previously ran NEW’s film business, is the president of Studio & NEW, which also announced their new TV line-up, after signing an MOU with the cable channel JTBC, which will screen four of their drama series over the next two years, including a TV adaption of their 2015 melodrama hit
The Beauty Inside.