Disney Exec Says ‘The Remarried Empress’ Has Substance to Match Its Spectacle

Disney’s Jon Wax says The Remarried Empress, the lavish Korean costume drama set to make its world premiere in Busan on Friday, has substance to match its spectacle.

The series is a big-budget bet for Disney+, adapting a wildly popular webtoon with around 3 billion views worldwide into a lavish romantasy series. And ahead of its streaming debut, the signs are encouraging.

Tickets for a three-episode preview at the Busan International Film Festival sold out “immediately,” according to local press. Stars Shin Min-a, Ju Ji-hoon, Lee Jong-suk and Lee Se-young were also expected to make public appearances in the city.

Wax, executive vp of international original television at Disney Entertainment, discussed the series during a “Creative Conversation” hosted by the Motion Picture Association and Disney+, with support from the Korean Film Council. Moderated by The Hollywood Reporter’s Asia bureau chief Patrick Brzeski, the BIFF session followed opening remarks from the MPA’s Urmila Venugopalan and explored Disney+’s investment in Asia-Pacific originals and creative partnerships to help local stories reach global audiences.

The Remarried Empress has some familiar Disney ingredients — romance, drama and plenty of stunning costumes — but it also remains a deeply Korean drama.

“We obviously recognized the brand affinity for Disney, which is exciting,” Wax said.

He also highlighted the unusual combination of an all-Korean cast, Western Baroque costumes and European filming locations. But the show’s appeal went beyond its distinctive look, according to the exec.

“There really is a character story and there’s an emotional journey,” Wax explained. “That’s what really sealed the deal for us. That’s what made us want to do it — that the journey itself, it tells a story.”

The Remarried Empress sees Shin, one of the K-drama world’s biggest stars, play the beloved empress of a fictional Eastern Kingdom, whose apparently solid marriage to Emperor Sovieshu (Ju) crumbles when he falls for a runaway slave girl (Lee Se-young). Passions also rise when the empress finds herself drawn to Crown Prince Heinrey (Lee Jong-suk), heir to a rival kingdom.

The series is set to debut Nov. 4 on Disney+ internationally and Hulu in the U.S.

The production is being touted as one of Disney+’s biggest investments in a Korean series since the service launched in the country in 2021. It’s also part of a broader push to boost originals output three-fold across the company’s international markets over the coming three years.

Disney+ is also looking to strike more co-production deals with Korean broadcasters, hoping to improve both the quality and reach of shows for both partners.

“I’m hoping that we can sort of lift all boats a little bit with some more partnerships, and we really seek those out, and have an entire team devoted to it,” Wax said.

One example is the hit romance Perfect Crown, made with Korean broadcaster MBC. Wax pointed to the series as evidence of Korean content’s vastly expanded appeal beyond the violent thrillers and dark dramas that helped draw the attention of international viewers in the earliest days of the Korean wave.

“The Korean market is mature enough now, clearly, that I think you really have to judge it on all the same points that you would judge U.S. content in that it can be slick, it can be well produced, but that’s not enough,” Wax said. “It has to have a good character journey.”

The streamer also has more anime and Japanese live-action content in its sights.

“We want to do more,” Wax said, with a new series based on Death Stranding, the game from Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima, planned for 2027. “But we need to walk before we run in Japan,” he added, noting that the Japanese production sector tends to move at a very deliberate pace.

“Korean content has already shown its ability to break out, and so we’re riding that wave a little more readily, but with Japanese content, we really want to make sure it works locally first,” he added.