K-pop is fast becoming a global musical force with the success of BTS and Blackpink.
HBO Max is looking to take advantage of this with a new series designed to find a new K-pop phenomenon. The twist? The streamer is looking for the band to come out of Latin America.
The WarnerMedia-backed streamer is developing the untitled competition series with Korean media firm CJ ENM, the company behind Fox’s I Can See Your Voice, and Endemol Shine Boomdog, the Spanish-language arm of Endemol Shine North America, which produces series including MasterChef Mexico and Univision’s Mira Quien Baila.
It’s a truly global format for the streamer, which has been increasingly growing its slate of internationally-focused projects and recently unveiled plans to launch in 39 territories across Lat Am and the Caribbean in late June.
The show will follow a group of young men from Latin America audition for an opportunity of a lifetime to fly to Korea to train under the K-pop secretive star-making system to launch the first K-pop coached Latin American super group.
Throughout the music competition show, contestants are tested with challenges designed to not only evaluate their individual abilities, but to help them come together as a diverse, yet unified boy band, ready to debut on the world’s stage.
K-pop’s influence across Latin America has been growing for a number of years and recently Colombia’s Sebastian Yatra teamed up with Monsta X for Magnetic, while BTS member J-Hope worked with Mexican-American singer Becky G on a remake of Chicken Noodle Soup. Puerto Rico’s Guaynaa also recently worked with Chung Ha on Demente.
It will be exec produced by Richard Jun, CJ ENM’s Harry HK Shin, Young Ju Ok and Jake Hong and Alejandro Rincon and Alvaro Godoy for Endemol Shine Boomdog.
