Ten original works ranging from an unproduced zombie script, through to web cartoons, web novels and animation concepts, were pitched on Saturday to potential partners at the Asian Film Market’s second edition of Entertainment Intellectual Property Market.
All the content pitched at the event originated in Korea. A large proportion of the would-be co-financiers were Chinese.
Launched last year, the new E-IP market is intended to expand the functionality of the Busan market, as Korean intellectual properties are considered as highly creative and have enjoyed wide popularity around Asia. In recent years, Chinese producers have engaged in particularly intense competition to buy Korean intellectual properties.
Seeking co-production partners and investors, Dahcima Film and Connetic Studio pitched “Bluebeard’s Castle,” a script based on the renowned Hungarian opera of the same name.
"We aim to produce a stage musical with this scenario,” said Dahci Ma, the writer of the script. “At the same time, it can be developed into a TV series with a format where each episode features a woman that Blubeard gets rid of—similar to that of ‘The Tudors’ series,” she continued.
In another pitch, web cartoon “Check Point” was pitched by Naver, Korea’s leading Internet content service operator. It is aiming to sell film adaptation rights. The story sees a man who can turn back the time to a specific point in the past, and abuses his special ability to win at gambling.
"The time travel theme is widely popular in China these days, but the gambling part might not be appropriated for a Chinese adaptation,” said indie producer Jonathan Kim, who moderated the pitching session. “One way to get away from it is to set the gambling part in a foreign country,” he said.
Reflecting the recent zombie picture rush, filmmaker Nam Sun-ho’s Creative Group Ggoolddanzy pitched a script for “Sweet Zombie.” Despite the project’s nature as a zombie-tinged story, “Zombie” is far from Yeon Sang-ho’s recent smash hit “Train to Busan.” A fantasy romantic comedy, the story revolves around a sexy female zombie that becomes a bodyguard to a womanizing Korean celebrity.
Next Entertainment World, a leading Korean film distributor, again sponsored the event and will donate a cash prize of $9,000 to a selected project.