Seen is a concept image of robot-themed drama production project "K-TRON." LG Uplus said Tuesday that it will establish a special purpose company with content production companies SAMG Entertainment and HighZium Studio for the upcoming drama, scheduled to hit the global market in 2026. Courtesy of LG Uplus

LG Uplus is partnering with SAMG Entertainment, known for the animation "Teenieping," and HighZium Studio, which produced the 2020 hit drama "Itaewon Class," to create a robot-themed drama targeting "kidults," or adults who enjoy fantasy realm characters, they said Tuesday.

The three companies will establish a special purpose company. Through this joint venture, they aim to create robot-themed intellectual property targeting both domestic and international markets.

They aim to debut the live-action robot drama "K-TRON" (tentative title) through streaming platforms around the world in 2026.

Korean content creators have not shown strong performance in the robot genre, which is popular worldwide. In this context, they added that their moves are significant in that they have come together to jointly produce content, challenging the domestic entertainment industry's long-standing desire for a live-action robot project.

"The large-scale live-action robot project has been a long-standing challenge for the domestic entertainment industry, but it has been postponed several times due to technical and market limitations. SAMG Entertainment has also been working on this project for a long time," said Kim Su-hoon, founder and CEO of SAMG Entertainment.

"By expanding SAMG Entertainment's successful business model to movies and dramas, we can create high added value like Marvel, Disney and Hasbro. As Korea's content is gaining global attention, we believe this is the perfect time for SAMG Entertainment to enter the global kidults market."

HighZium Studio, famous for producing "Money Heist: Korea — Joint Economic Area" and "The Sound of Magic," also said the know-how of the three companies will create synergy.

"The renowned production team with the best K-content production experience is joining forces to produce K-robot live-action," an official of the studio said. "We will lead the global market by applying HighZium Studio's production know-how to this project."

The popularity of the global robot IP market is tremendous. The kidult market was at 1.6 trillion won ($1.15 billion) in 2020 in Korea alone and is expected to grow to a scale of 11 trillion won, according to data by the Korea Creative Content Agency. It's also a genre that allows for long-term and diverse business expansion, including not only content but also theme parks, games and merchandise.

"I think the story that will be produced by combining 3D robots and real actors based on Korea's AI and visual effects technology capabilities can gain new attention in the global content market," Lee Deok-jae, chief content officer at LG Uplus, said.