Ariana Grande, proper, as Galinda Upland and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba Thropp in a scene from the upcoming movie, “Depraved” / Courtesy of Common Footage
By Baek Byung-yeul
The musical fantasy movie, “Depraved,” tailored from the beloved Broadway present, is about to captivate Korean audiences with its world premiere right here.
Whereas the extremely anticipated movie is about to launch in North America on Nov. 22, it’s going to debut right here two days earlier due to the recognition of its stage model in Korea.
“Depraved” reimagines the basic, “Wizard of Oz,” centering on Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo), who has but to find her true energy, and Galinda Upland (Ariana Grande), who hasn’t discovered her true nature, as they construct their friendship and face surprising challenges and adventures.
The musical movie’s distributor, Common Footage, is working to tailor this magical encounter and journey to be extra relatable for Korean audiences, a choice largely influenced by the stage model’s phenomenal success in Korea.
The stage model, primarily based on Gregory Maguire’s novel of the identical title, gained widespread recognition in Korea when it premiered in 2012, changing into a field workplace hit that 12 months. In 2013, a Korean-language model that includes Korean actors debuted and likewise achieved vital success.
As a result of excessive recognition, the movie model of “Depraved” will likely be launched in each subtitled and dubbed variations in Korea, a uncommon transfer for a serious movie launch right here.
Korea is among the few nations to obtain a dubbed model of a foreign-language movie. For “Depraved,” nevertheless, the actors who performed Elphaba and Galinda within the stage musical — Park Hye-na and Jeong Solar-ah — reprise their roles for the dubbing, aiming to draw followers of the stage model.
Musical actress Park Hye-na, who performed Elphaba within the musical “Depraved,” reprises the position within the dubbed model of the movie “Depraved.” Captured from Common Footage’ YouTube channel
To additional promote the movie to Korean followers, lead actors Erivo and Grande made a video look on tvN’s widespread present, “Wonderful Saturday,” final weekend.
Within the video, the 2 actors stunned viewers by difficult Okay-pop stars Taeyeon and Key, mentioning that that they had heard about their nice chemistry and needed to match it.
The Korean movie market peaked because the world’s fourth-largest in 2019, with round $1.6 billion in revenues. After experiencing a pointy decline throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, it rebounded in 2023 to develop into the world’s ninth-largest market, with field workplace earnings of $1.24 billion, in keeping with Korean Movie Council knowledge.
Given its vital presence within the world market, trade watchers be aware that Hollywood movies have been implementing Korea-specific parts comparable to world premieres or actor visits and video greetings particularly for the Korean market.
