12 million hearts! "Bangsa-nam" made a huge profit..Producer "Thinking about incentives" [Interview ④]

*This content was translated by AI.

With "The Man Who Lives With The King" set to surpass 12 million viewers, the producer Lim Eun-jung said, "We are considering incentives."

At a cafe in Samcheong-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul on the 11th, I met with Lim Eun-jung, CEO of Onda Works, the production company of the movie "The Man Who Lives with the King" (director Jang Hang-joon).

"The Man Who Lives with the King" is a movie about Cheongryeongpo in 1457, a chief who claimed to be exiled for the revival of the village, and a young predecessor who was expelled from the throne and exiled. On the 31st day of its release, the cumulative audience exceeded 10 million on the 6th, becoming the first 10 million movie in 2026 and the first 10 million movie in about two years since "The Outlaws 4" (2024). It is the 34th record of all time and the 25th record for a Korean movie.

CEO Lim Eun-jung founded Onda Works, a production company, in 2023 after working as a producer for CJ ENM's film division's investment team and planning and production team for 12 years.

CEO Lim Eun-jung said about the success of "The Man Who Lives with the King," "I thought, 'People missed the theater.' I'm most pleased with the fact that it's an all-age target movie. I was thrilled to see that So-jae, who is good for everyone to talk about, especially Hae-jin, came to the 90s during the stage greeting. I think I often shared the joy of doing movies with a wide target audience," he said.

Regarding the continuing social syndrome related to the work, he said, "When I was filming in Yeongwol, I imagined that 'if the movie goes well, it will be ridiculous.' But I'm surprised to see it actually happen, he said. "What's more surprising is that people actually visit Yeongwol and leave their minds about discontinuation and take action."

"There was a risk that the place where we built the set and filmed could be submerged if it rained a lot, so there was an ambiguous part if we did not construct it separately. I'm also very sorry that there's no set left," he added.

CEO Lim Eun-jung, whose first production since the establishment of the production company exceeded 10 million viewers, said, "It's a company that just started, and it's not an investment that started. When "The Man Who Lives with the King" goes well to a certain extent, it makes it possible to stably prepare the work in the future. I thought King Danjong was taking care of me, but since it's going much better than I expected, I'm thinking of compensation (incentives) for those who made it with CEO Jang Won-seok of BA Entertainment.

"It's still abstract, but I'm thinking about a direction that helps Korean movies," he said. "If the drama goes well, I take a lot of reward vacations, but I think it's possible because the crank-up and the timing of the broadcast are intertwined, and I don't think we'll be able to go, so I don't think equity will match. We are discussing the compensation in any way," he explained.

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*This content was translated by AI.