Lots of chatter in K-ent today with the reported salary news around singer-actress IU and her payment for upcoming drama You Did Good (Thank You for Your Hard Work) with Park Bo Gum. Earlier this week the news came out that the drama will likely air in the beginning of 2025 with simul-stream on Netflix. Now K-ent is saying that IU has now vaulted to become the highest paid K-actress in the industry with a 500 million won ($380,000) per episode paycheck for this drama. The old standard was 200 million won per episode for top actresses Song Hye Kyo, Jeon Ji Hyun, and Lee Young Ae just two years ago. I’m sure those ladies are getting more than that but it appears not yet breaking the half a billion won mark like IU just did. K-netizens are split on whether she’s earned this massive payday or that this portends badly for the salary inflation in the industry for top stars.
Still less than what their Western counterparts get paid. Actors get paid more than actresses so LMH and KSH must be getting close to 1 Billion Won. LJJ apparently earned 1 Billion Won for Squid Game after the bonuses Netflix gave them for their success. Dramas these days are much shorter thanks to OTT so actors and actresses need to get paid more per episode to make up for the shorter count because amount of hours they spend filming the dramas doesn’t reduce by much. It’s fair compensation.
as long as she could prove that she’s worth every won i dont see anything wrong with it.
its also incorrect to compare korean dramas to us series. us series are in seasonal format where actors eventually became the face of it. once renegotiations for additional seasons are up, thats the time they could ask for higher salary. and it only happens to popular ones like thebigbangtheory.
while korean dramas rely on star power thats why actors can command higher salary.
This false report has been debunked by both Edam Ent (IU’s agency) & Netflix.
Here’s the official news:
https://n.news.naver.com/entertain/article/213/0001250517
아이유 측 “회당 출연료 5억? 명백한 오보” [공식]
With Netflix and other content streaming platforms, there is wider audience reach and actors’ pay is no longer limited by the Korean market. I don’t think it’s an unreasonable increase so long as the production company thinks the actor is worth the money.
It’s IU. Of course she deserves that salary! Are they being serious in questioning it?
For real lol. Love her or hate her, no one can deny that nobody is doing it like IU, she’s killing it in both music and acting fields. Plus she also has both critical and commercial success, not to mention she’s a bankable endorser too, and is popular domestically and internationally 😎👌
Same, she’s got years of well received performances and hit dramas behind her and is as famous as ever fifteen years after her debut, now she draws international drama fans too.
I hope she’s getting paid equally to Park Bogum for this drama, she deserves that much.
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