Big Budget K-drama When the Stars Gossip with Gong Hyo Jin and Lee Min Ho Heads into Second Half of 2024 Still with No Confirmed Network or Airing Date
So I’ve been dum-dum-hum-de-dum-ing along expecting word of when space romance big budget K-drama When the Stars Gossip (Ask the Star) with Gong Hyo Jin and Lee Min Ho was going to get a confirmed airing date on tvN. The drama has finished filming over a year ago with principal production between April 2022 to January 2023. Now it’s become clear this drama is stuck in the no man’s land of cost too much to make and all the available networks and platforms are belt tightening. With a budget of 50 billion won it’s one of the most expensive ever and if tvN and Netflix were to jointly buy it with the former getting terrestrial airing and the latter overseas streaming it might not even be enough to justify the purchase price much less make money. It’s such a bummer because I was super looking forward to this and the longer it gathers dust the more it risks coming off potentially outdated when it does air. Even if this does get picked up and airs (please let that happen!) the era of mega K-dramas may be over or at least on pause.
It’s been so long that I completely forgot about this show. One more factor could be that platforms are wary about the science fiction genre. This seems to be mainly a romance, but I’m pretty sure everything that Korea has made with a sci-fi tag has failed miserably. This applies to both movies and shows, they just can’t seem to get it right.
Including Moving? I thought it was a huge hit? Wasn’t it a sic-fi?
Moving is a superhero drama which I would put under fantasy though. Okay, let me correct myself then. The vast majority of Korea’s sci-fi works (especially space-themed ones like Silent Sea and The Moon) have flopped.
“Moving” was supernatural. Powers and superheroes. Super good.
Korean sci-fi is actually really cringe, far behind others. Their specialty is romance. When they add the supernatural, romance still works well, but when they add an element like sci-fi, ICK. They definitely don’t invest enough money into the sci-fi piece of it, but even worse, they don’t invest enough research to make it believable. Lol. Thus, CRINGE.
Good sci-fi requires extremely rigorous world-building (1+1 needs to equal 2 according to your rules) and a scientific foundation, which are not what Korean screenwriting is strong at.
How this get made in the first place if no station/platform is willing to air it? Where did they get the money to bankroll such big budget production?
Production company made this and then they usually sell the license for airing it
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I am so sad about this. I love Gong Hyo Jin and Lee Min Hoo and haven’t seen them in a drama for such a long time
Oh wow, this exists. I totally forgot.
TVN already has Resident Playbook on hold due to the strike and Serendipity’s Embrace benefited in securing a time slot because of that. However, they are under pressure to release it next year due to the Netflix contract. If that’s the case then the Jan to Jun 2025 programming is already set. Resident Playbook -> Our Movie -> Divorce Insurance. Assuming this drama manages to secure a slot for Jul next year that would be almost 2.5 years after filming concluded. How relevant and trendy can a drama that old still be? Is it worth releasing on tv? Will it still bring in ratings? Unless LMH or GHJ become super trendy because of another project overall the benefits might not be much. Still the drama has to release at some point I hope. What is surprising is two top Hallyu stars are struggling with a warehouse drama. Nobody expected that.
“How relevant and trendy can a drama that old still be?”
Let’s see how Serendipity’s Embrace, Bad Memory Eraser, and Death to Snow White perform. Summer 2024 seems to be the season of shelved dramas finally seeing the light after many years.
All the dramas you’ve mentioned are just placeholders. Unfortunately one can see from the promos itself that the channel don’t care about the dramas in themselves. They’re just waiting it out till the bigger and more anticipated dramas come out. Especially for TVN they’ve already moved all their promotional efforts to Love Next Door and No Loss Love. Both of which are the much trendier dramas.
I forgot about this too…
There are 3 ways to make people watch the drama, the plot, the star power, or the sense of cp. Anyway the plot and the sense of cp is out of questions so only star power will be the factor in this.
The plot being scifi yet focus in romance is already minus, fans of scifi won’t be keen on watching this, while romance fans don’t usually likes complicated topics. Anyway I’m just yapping, maybe the plot is really good
This drama is such a mystery. The budget is not exponentially different from other big budget kdrama blockbusters like Moving, Queen of Tears, Arthdal Chronicles, etc. Bulgasal(!!) – another drama with very high production cost let by LJW(!!!) – made it on air no problem. So I’m still not understand how this one can’t when it has GHJ and LMH. It’s truly baffling. The earliest tvN slot now is mid to late 2025 which feels a bit too late for a drama shot 3 years prior.
I suppose the lesson here is to never produce a drama without having a broadcasting platform confirmed. I think that was a covid trend because it’s been happening less and less recently.
@Butterfly – kdramas and movies have a notoriously poor track record with sci-fi genre, especially things with that sci-fi “look” like spaceships and aliens etc.
Snowpiercer is the only work of that genre that I can think of was a huge hit with Korean audiences and even there the aesthetic influence of sci-fi is minimal (obviously when I say ‘aliens’ I don’t mean ones like Do Minjoon, YFAS is really a fantasy drama and Korea likes those)
Yea, its most likely a genre issue if they dont have any takers because its not lacking on star power. Or maybe like other commenters said, its a post production issue. If that were the case, then boy I’m expecting it to be better than anything we’ve seen in a kdrama. Because 1.5 years of post production? Thats a lot of time and a lot of resources spent on a 1 season 16 episode drama.
@Butterfly yeah even Stranger Things doesn’t take that long in post-production! Is this real or is it just an excuse to hide its warehousing….
Maybe content is really underwhelming and it did not turn out well. No other reason it wouldn’t sell with LMH who still has good international fanbase.
If you’re talking about the genre, scifi itself is quite niche for kdrama audience, and this drama seems to focus on romance based on the stills. Scifi fans won’t watch this since it focus on romance, while romance fans wouldn’t really anticipate this since it involves complicated genre. Anyway lee minho fans will still eat this up. I predict it will have the same traction as pachinko
No one want to take a risk now..they know Lee Min Ho have been flopping every single time now..TVN must be out of their mind coz this drama also looks like its going to be a very big failure too..
His dramas isn’t flopping… Just say you don’t like him, it would sound more realistic.
Legend of the blue sea had 20% ratings, this is a big ratings. Pachinko was successful enough to make 2 season.
The only drama you can call a flop is The King: Eternal Monarch, and this is definitely not “he have been flopping every single time now”.
It’s a new information? I’m pretty sure tvN already took this drama, it’s just post production took too much time.
Company “Garage lab” which did teasers and posters for Queen of tears, Lovely runner and for a lot of other dramas, post a list of their upcoming projects in April, and Ask the stars for tvN are one of them.
https://x.com/caramelhershey/status/1781140919946977598
https://x.com/Lucia07497688/status/1781324630575223067
Lee Min Ho posted a photo 2 weeks ago from ADR studio, he finished dubbing for that drama, and Gong Hyo Jin commented that she still didn’t do it, Lee Min Ho was first. https://x.com/Kongvelyans_INA/status/1808838587187933449
So it means they still didn’t finished to make that drama, it took a lot of time but process still going.
I think this is a reason tvN keep going delay Ask the stars. Production team is Studio dragon, one of the most big production company, I doubt they can’t find a channel or OTT. Maybe they don’t want to repeat the same mistake they did with Arthdal Chronicles, then they aired drama although it wasn’t completely ready which followed a lot of criticism for low quality of CGI.
I was under the impression that it could be post production preventing it from airing sooner too. I’ve seen some cringe level special effects in dramas and movies. It can be incredibly distracting if it’s poorly done. GHJ has had a career of hit dramas winning a Daesang with her last one. These are two of the biggest drama stars being paired together, it would have to be bad for it not to air. Like they have no chemistry together bad. The budget is just too big for a production to continue to move forward if that was the case, top stars or not. Loads of product placement and selling this drama internationally; the drama will at least make its money back.
There are some dramas with bigger budget, like that drama with Song Hye Kyo and Gong Yoo, or with IU and Park Bo Gum.
Queen of tears had almost the same budget, and the drama was paid off before it even aired.
Budget of Impossible heir was 20 billion won, and this drama didn’t have any popular actors except Lee Jae Wook.
So I think money isn’t problem since OTT and TV channel together can pay off it.
But it’s my assumption, maybe I’m wrong.
Oh, I misunderstood your comment. I’m agree, it’s doubtful they’d continue to do post-production and making budget bigger than it is without some OTT lr channel behind their back.
Is this a new information?
I’m pretty sure tvN already took this drama, and they keep postponing it because of post production.
Company “Garage Lab” which making teasers, posters etc for dramas (they did it for QOT, LR and for many other dramas) posted list with their upcoming projects in the April, and drama Ask the start is one of them.
Lee Min Ho posted photo from ADR studio 2 weeks ago, he finished dubbing his character in ATS, and Gong Hyo Jin commented by saying that she still hasn’t done it. It means post production wasn’t finished yet, process still going.
Production company is a Studio dragon, one of the big production company, so I doubt they don’t have channel or OTT for that drama.
I think about two reasons:
1. They keep delaying that drama because want to make everything good and don’t want to repeat the same mistake they did with Arthdal Chronicles, when they aired drama before finishing work with it.
2. Apple TV announced 2 season of Pachinko airing from August to October, and they want to air next Lee Min Ho drama after Pachinko, so his next drama can have some benefit from Pachinko popularity.
Oops, I thought my previous comment deleted so made another one
I assume there would be a lot of post production work needed for the aerospace settings. Not an easy project if they demand good CGI without enough funding. I’m a huge fan of GHJ, not so much of LMH. I’m a huge fan of sci-fi, no so much of romance focused. If it’s premiered, I’ll check it out and see how it goes. Would never know if there will be another surprise like Moving that I totally didn’t expect to be so addicting.
i was looking forward to this and was wondering why it wasn’t being released. now it makes sense. it’s unfortunate because this pair look amazing together.
i don’t care when or where it airs. i want to see them together.
They have the best actors in this movie.The producers went over there budget for the movie. Just put the movie out in 2025.
The movie will be picked up . Things happens in God’s time not ours. Just thank God for having someone to cash in on your movie. Good things comes to those who wait patiently.