”Queen of Tears” starring Kim Soo Hyun becomes Studio Dragon's highest-profit content to date

Studio Dragon's first-half mega-hit Queen of Tears is still going strong in the drama-related business more than six months after its broadcast, supported by the popularity of the content.

Supported by the hot popularity in Japan, Studio Dragon plans to hold an encore pop-up store of Queen of Tears in Tokyo on the 1st November and another pop-up store in Taiwan by the end of the year. Following Seoul last summer, Studio Dragon has successfully held ‘Queen of Tears’ pop-up stores in four cities in Japan, including Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka, and in three countries, including Manila in the Philippines.

‘Queen of Tears’ has become one of the top ten most profitable contents of all time out of more than 260 IPs owned by Studio Dragon. Following the profitable sale of air tickets before the show went on-air, the MD product pop-up store and OST business are all doing well. Furthermore, with the recent signing of a contract for a remake copyright for Chulkye and the ongoing issue of using the IP for performances, the scale of profits from the productions is expected to increase further.

Against this backdrop, related MD products such as files, acrylic key rings, key chains, postcard sets and tote bags have proved popular at pop-up stores so far. In addition, accessories actually used in the drama, such as Hyun-woo's hair dryer that dried Hae-in's head in Yeon-duri, the MP3 player on which Hyun-woo and Hae-in confirmed their mutual fate, and Hae-in's recording pen, were also displayed at the same time, attracting enthusiastic responses from ‘Queen of Tears’ fans.

A representative from Studio Dragon stated, ‘Thanks to the enthusiasm of overseas fans, we have confirmed an additional date for the pop-up store in Tokyo, and we are also actively discussing additional projects such as performance projects’ and ‘We plan to increase contacts with viewers around the world through more diverse projects’.

Queen of Tears, which ended in April 2024 with great popularity, recorded an average viewer rating of 24.9% for the final episode, and ranked first in all-time viewer ratings on tvN, a broadcasting channel. Served on Netflix worldwide, it recorded a cumulative 29 million views and 682.6 million hours in the first half of this year, showing the highest viewing results among Korean dramas served on Netflix in the first half of this year. It was subsequently nominated in the Best Direction and Best Screenplay categories at the Singapore AACA (Asian Academy Creative Awards), and won the Asian Television Awards It is also attracting interest as a contender in the Best Scriptwriting category at the Asian Television Awards.