Anna PD Lee Joo Young Publicly Airs Grievance Over Coupang Play Unilaterally Editing Her Drama and Broadcasting it Over Her Objection
This is a frequent occurrence in the world of entertainment but its still so frustrating and demoralizing. I’ve heard of scripts getting re-written, dialogues getting changed, character trajectories getting changed midway through, and of course a final product getting re-edited. That’s apparently what happened to recently aired K-drama Anna, which got solid reviews and was the biggest drama hit for Coupang Play to date. Unfortunately the behind-the-scenes was no so glowing as PD Lee Joo Young has recently come out to blast Coupang Play for massively editing her drama over her objections and airing it. It was so traumatic for her she cannot even watch the version aired on Coupang and says that is NOT the drama she filmed. She’s even more upset with Coupang Play saying that it wants to release a “director’s cut” soon to milk more out of this drama when it was all their shenanigans that even led to having a director’s cut version existing in the first place. She vowed never to work with Coupang Play again and said she’s getting lots of industry reach out and support for her after she spoke up on mistreatment of her work.
That sucks. I don’t know what’s in their contracts obviously but the PD should have editorial and creative rights over their own projects. It went well this time but it could’ve not, and the fall out would’ve been as much on the PD as it would the network. They really should’ve worked this out instead of Coupang milking it this way. It looks so bad.
(Also, while not incorrect in a literal sense, it’s kinda silly to call any drama a network’s “biggest hit” when said network aired all of 2 dramas in total lol)
That’s why the drama pacing feels very fast. It feels like a lot of scenes have been cut and honestly it was the only problem with the series. Overall the drama is good , the acting and plot is solid. Can’t wait to watch the director’s cut.