Korean stars' acting skills have soared in recent years, making them darlings on streaming platforms. Take the highly popular series "Squid Game" as an example, which created world-class star Lee Jung-jae. When filming "Squid Game 2," the fee per episode was as high as 10 billion KRW (approximately 3.11 million MYR). As actors' fees increased, production costs on staff and post-production teams were squeezed. Therefore, Netflix, which has heavily invested in South Korea, can no longer bear it and has proposed an adjustment mechanism for high actor fees.
According to Korean media reports, Netflix has set an "upper limit" for actor fees, with a maximum of 400 million KRW (approximately 1.24 million MYR) per episode. They also reformed the cost structure of production. With the streaming era upon us, the cost of producing Korean dramas has been continuously rising, reaching a staggering 2 billion KRW (approximately 6.22 million MYR) per episode now. It's only describable as "exaggerated." It's worth mentioning that Korean actors' pay is generally much higher than in other countries. For instance, Japanese actors average 10 million Japanese Yen (approximately 290,000 MYR) per episode, which is much cheaper than their Korean counterparts.
However, the improved production costs have produced impressive results, with a series of both critically acclaimed and commercially successful Korean dramas emerging recently. This has forced companies like Netflix to propose mutually beneficial methods; otherwise, upcoming series like "Bitter Sweet Orange You" and the soon-to-be-released "Squid Game 3" could turn into a heavy cost pressure.
Source: Liberty Entertainment