Era of 10 Billion Won Actor Fees: From Song Kang-ho to Lee Jung-jae
Actor fees continue to soar. With actor fees surpassing 10 billion won, a red light has been lit for drama production
According to industry sources on June 16th, actor Song Kang-ho‘s per-episode fee for Disney+’s drama “Uncle Samsik” is reported to be 700 million won. Initially planned as a 10-episode series, he was expected to receive 7 billion won in total. However, as the series was extended to 16 episodes, it is estimated that he received over 10 billion won in total.
Actor Lee Jung-jae‘s per-episode fee for Netflix’s drama “Squid Game Season 2” is said to be 1 billion won. “Squid Game Season 2” is the first K-drama to enter the era of 100 billion won production costs, and Lee Jung-jae, as the lead actor, is reported to receive 1 million USD (about 1.3 billion won) per episode.
This is the highest fee ever for a Korean actor, and considering that “Squid Game” is planned as a 13-episode series until Season 3, Lee Jung-jae’s expected total fee is estimated to be 13 million USD (17.134 billion won).
As actor fees are set so high, it is natural for content production costs to increase. According to industry insiders, when casting a famous actor as the lead in a drama, the standard fee is 300~400 million won per episode, necessitating a production budget of over 1 billion won per episode.
The recently concluded tvN drama “Queen of Tears” reportedly cost a total of 56 billion won for its 16 episodes, with an average of 3.5 billion won per episode. It was previously reported that the lead actor, Kim Soo-hyun, received 800 million won per episode, making it the highest fee for a domestic drama, though Kim Soo-hyun’s side denied this.
Later, reports emerged that Kim Soo-hyun had agreed to a fee of 5 billion won, equivalent to over 300 million won per episode, meaning about one-tenth of the production cost went to him.
With actor fees constituting a significant portion of production costs, concerns about the sustainability of the drama market are growing. As production costs rise, drama production has drastically decreased, leading to the suspension of Wednesday-Thursday dramas and the reduction of Monday-Tuesday drama schedules. In 2022, 141 dramas were aired on domestic channels, but this number decreased to 123 last year, and is expected to drop to around 100 this year, a reduction of 30~40%.
