New Digital Frontiers for Top Korean Content Providers

Along With the Gods: The Two Worlds (2017) 

Lotte Cultureworks and Dexter Studios have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to enter into a strategic partnership for the joint production and distribution of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) based on their intellectual property.

Lotte, an entertainment giant in Korea that is one of the major financiers and distributors of Korean films and also runs one of the top exhibition chains, and Dexter Studios, the country’s top visual effects studio and production company, will look to extend the lifecycle of their IP through the creation and promulgation of NFTs, which will be developed in various forms for the benefit of the fans of their films.

In addition to their many other hits, Lotte and Dexter Studios jointly worked on several successful projects, including the Along with the Gods films and Ryoo Seungwan’s Escape from Mogadishu (2021).

The signing ceremony for the MOU is placed in the metaverse, indicating both companies’ commitment to new virtual technologies. 

Built with blockchain technology, NFTs are unique digital assets that can be traded on online markets. 

Lotte Cultureworks CEO Choi Byunghwan said, "Just as NFTs are being applied in various ways in the film field around the world, our company has also paid attention to the NTF field as a future business that can create value.” He added that “Through our collaboration with Dexter Studios, the best VFX company in the country, we will be able to present results at a differentiated level from the existing NFT-related film contents.”

Dexter Studio CEOs Kim Wook and Kang Jongik stated, “If we add Dexter Studio’s research and technology to Lotte Cultureworks’ solid IP, we can plan and produce higher quality NFTs. This collaboration is another opportunity to increase the utilization of content IP and create new revenue. I hope that it will become an opportunity for the future.”

This partnership represents the latest move by Korean film companies into the realms of NFTs. One of the first companies to experiment in the field was Next Entertainment World (NEW), which developed NFTs as part of their marketing campaign in the lead-up to the release of the action film Special Delivery earlier this year.