Under the Queen's Umbrella

- K-CULTURE NIGHT at the Academy Museum with KCON to take place on July 31 at David Geffen Theater

Leading entertainment company CJ ENM today announced an upcoming cultural event to be held at and in partnership with the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Titled “K-CULTURE NIGHT at Academy Museum with KCON,” the event will celebrate the 13th anniversary of KCON and the growing global cultural successes of K-content, marking the company’s 30th anniversary. 

K-CULTURE NIGHT will take place on July 31 at the David Geffen Theater at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles. The event will also feature a star-studded roster of Korean celebrities including: 

- Multifaceted Korean American entertainer Eric Nam, who will emcee the event

- Dancer and choreographer CHOIHOJONG, who earned the moniker "icon of K-dance” 

- K-pop stars such as LEE YOUNGJI and P1Harmony, and global Japanese girl group IS:SUE 

- Actor YIM Siwan who recently starred in <Squid Game>.

The event comes as part of the company’s partnership with the Academy Museum. In March 2025, the two partners inked the three-year partnership in a bid to elevate the presence of not just Korean, but also other Asian films and talent in Hollywood. For the partnership's first initiative, CJ ENM supported Director Bong Joon Ho's exhibition Director's Inspiration: Bong Joon Ho – the first museum exhibition dedicated to the internationally acclaimed, Oscar®–winning film director – which opened on March 23, 2025, as well as the accompanying film screening series. 

Since the launch of its entertainment business in 1995, CJ ENM has been at the forefront of the Korean cultural industry as a K-content visionary. The company has also continuously pioneered the expansion of K-pop’s global landscape through KCON, the world’s largest K-POP Fan & Artist Festival. 

KCON began in the United States in 2012 and has since been held in Japan, Hong Kong, Germany, United Arab Emirates, France, Mexico, Australia, Thailand, and Saudi Arabia. In 2024, KCON LA wrapped up with another phenomenal year, attracting over 5.9 million fans from more than 170 countries for KCON LA 2024 both at the festival site and through digital platforms. KCON also made U.S. history with the first-ever national primetime broadcast of a K-pop show with The CW Network’s live broadcast of the show.  

KCON LA 2025, the star-studded annual K-pop festival, presented by title sponsor Olive Young, South Korea’s leading beauty and health retailer, will take place for three days from August 1-3, 2025 at the Los Angeles Convention Center and Crypto.com Arena. Tickets for KCON LA 2025 are currently available through AXS.

– “Creativity is key, even in AI content” – CJ ENM applies AI technology to its creative works to reshape the future ecosystem

– Builds industry-optimized AI solutions to go beyond production efficiency and create new business models

– Debuts 100% AI-generated animation and announces upcoming lineup

Celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2025, leading entertainment company CJ ENM unveiled its comprehensive AI strategy and premiered a new original AI animation, reaffirming its commitment to pioneering the content industry through AI.

CJ ENM hosted the 2025 CJ ENM CULTURE TALK <K-Content Meets AI: How AI Technology is Transforming the Future of the K-Content Industry> on June 30 at the CJ ENM Talent Studio in Sangam, Seoul.

At the event, the company shared plans to not only embrace technical innovation but also pursue differentiation through its strong creative expertise, recognizing that it has become more critical than ever for content companies to develop AI capabilities tailored to the entertainment sector.

CJ ENM’s AI Innovation Strategy Across the Full Content Value Chain

Shin Keun-sup, Chief Strategy Officer at CJ ENM, outlined the company’s AI strategy, designed to build lasting competitiveness in the digital content landscape.

“We are applying AI across the entire content value chain—including planning, production, distribution, and marketing—to expand AI content production across genres and formats. This allows us to secure next-generation IP,” said Shin. “At the same time, we’re nurturing a new generation of creators equipped with AI technology, business, and content planning expertise, and expanding our AI team to position CJ ENM as a global AI studio.”

The company demonstrated its proprietary AI production systems currently applied in its workflows.

‘Cinematic AI’ is a system optimized for narrative content such as drama and film. The system seamlessly integrates image, video, sound, and voice—unlike other workflows that required separate tools. Cinematic AI also automatically processes 3D characters and environments, resulting in consistent and coherent visual output—a long-standing challenge in AI-generated videos.

‘AI Script’ is an AI agent system designed to help discover original IP. The tool analyzes consumer demand and market trends. It then identifies promising IP and suggests suitable genres and media. Unlike conventional AI models provided by existing big tech companies, AI Script demonstrates a more nuanced understanding of literary language that enables deeper analysis of content marketability with cross-lingual insights.

The Premiere of <Cat Biggie> and a Preview of Upcoming AI Original Lineup

As part of the showcase, CJ ENM premiered <Cat Biggie>, a non-verbal short-form animation series created entirely in-house. The series took a total of five months to complete, including content planning and character development. It involved a compact team of six specialists. The speed and scale of the project are noteworthy, given that a typical 5-minute 3D animation takes three to four months to produce.

The story follows a cat who unexpectedly meets a baby chick and becomes its father. The series consists of 30 episodes, each two minutes in length, and will be released for global audiences on YouTube starting in July.

Baek Hyun-jung, Head of AI Business & Production, led the planning and production of the series. “The key challenge was controlling and expressing the dynamic movements unique to animation,” she said. “We used our tool, Cinematic AI, to convert the characters into 3D data and train the production system accordingly. This allowed us to achieve a high level of completeness in the final output.”

Building on its animation debut, CJ ENM further expands its production to AI film and AI drama, which will be launched within the year.

The event also included a policy discussion with Sang-Hyeok Im, Partner at SHIN & KIM LLC. “It is crucial to establish a foundation to advance the global AI content market,” he shared. “This includes clear industry guidelines, legal frameworks for copyright and data protection, and the dedicated government departments to support the field.”

- Secured format exports of previous hits “It’s Okay to Not Be Okay”, “Happiness”, and “Mouse” and showcased global co-production capabilities through exclusive screening of “Mugen Loop (Infinite Loop)” jointly produced with TBS

Leading entertainment company CJ ENM highlighted the Busan Content Market (BCM) 2025, Asia’s largest global content market held in Busan, Korea. The company secured format deals, presented an exclusive screening of its global co-production show, and held academy sessions for next-generation K-content advocates.

Reaching its 30th anniversary this year, the global IP powerhouse showcased its extensive content library ranging from flagship titles over the past 30 years to highly anticipated upcoming titles, exploring various collaboration opportunities with media industry leaders gathered at BCM 2025 from all over the world.

CJ ENM locked in format deals and promoted globally resonating content IPs at the market. The widely acclaimed romance series “It’s Okay to Not Be Okay” is adapted by the Philippines’ top media company ABS-CBN Studios, and popular mystery series “Happiness” and “Mouse” are getting their Thai adaptations through TrueCJ Creations, a joint venture founded by Thailand’s True Visions and CJ ENM. “Second Shot at Love,” the freshly launched romantic comedy, and “Law and The City,” the courtroom drama premiering in July, also received great reception from industry figures attending BCM.

Heay-Young Na, Sales Executive at International Sales Department of CJ ENM, at the screening of “Mugen Loop”

At the BCM Conference, CJ ENM screened its game show “Mugen Loop (Infinite Loop)” jointly produced with Japan’s major terrestrial television network TBS, proposing a vision for the future of Korea-Japan co-productions. Premiered in March, this show follows CJ ENM and TBS’s strategic partnership formed in 2021. Next in line from their collaboration is the Japanese drama “Love is for the Dogs” airing in July, and Studio Dragon, Korea’s Leading Scripted Studio, is taking on the production from CJ ENM’s side.

Lee Hye-young, Chief Producer at Studio Dragon, at BCM academy session

CJ ENM representatives who steered the wheel for its latest scripted and unscripted shows shared their insight at BCM academy sessions for next-generation K-content advocates. Lee Hye-young, Chief Producer at Studio Dragon, explained how tailoring platform strategies for each content leads to wide success. While “Study Group” was developed as a streamer-targeted series from the beginning to preserve the original webtoon’s characteristics, “Queen of Tears” added family to romance to grasp audiences regardless of age and preferred platforms.

Park Sang-Hyuk, Executive of Channel Business Division at CJ ENM, at BCM academy session

Park Sang-Hyuk, Executive of Channel Business Division at CJ ENM, spoke on recent Korean unscripted shows broadening their reach worldwide. “Mugen Loop” and Korea’s nationwide dating reality show “EXchange,” which was also adapted in Japan, demonstrated how Korean unscripted content has the potential to travel internationally.

BCM also handed the Entertainment Award to CJ ENM’s flagship variety show “You Quiz on the Block” at the BCM OTT Series Awards (BOSA) held alongside the market. BOSA recognizes key figures and IPs of the K-content industry, and among last year’s winners was Park Ji-eun, the screenwriter behind CJ ENM’s global sensation “Queen of Tears.”

Sebastian Kim, VP of International Business Department at CJ ENM remarked, “We are beyond grateful to see CJ ENM's diverse content being recognized at numerous global content markets. CJ ENM will commit to presenting K-content that can connect with audiences from all around the world and extend the reach of its content library.”

As the global IP powerhouse, CJ ENM will continue to spearhead the K-content industry throughout 2025 by growing its slate of globally relevant content and expanding its access to a wider audience.