"Pre-creating Films with Unreal Engine Cut Costs by 30%" [K, to Hollywood]

Director Jang Sung-ho of "King of Kings"
Risk Management Through Virtual Production

Director Jang Sung-ho [Jo Haneul QK Pictures Writer]

"We built the entire film production system based on the Unreal Engine, which is used for game development."

This is the secret to efficient production revealed by Director Jang Sungho, who directed the animated film 'King of Kings.' On November 5 (local time), at 'U-KNOCK 2025 in USA' hosted by the Korea Creative Content Agency at the Loews Hollywood Hotel in Los Angeles, he said, "We reduced production costs and time by more than 30% through real-time previsualization."

He explained that this approach allows for pre-production viewing before incurring significant expenses, maximizing efficiency. He also pointed out problems with the traditional process. "In a linear process, once you pass a certain stage, you can't go back. In fact, many production companies only discover problems in the later stages of work. They then face the costly challenge of reshooting or supplementing cuts."

'King of Kings' is the most successful Korean film ever at the U.S. box office. Since its release on April 11, it has grossed a cumulative $60.25 million (approximately 86.8 billion won), easily surpassing 'Parasite,' which earned $53.84 million (about 77.6 billion won).

The difference lies in the planning stage. Director Jang initially aimed to target the North American market with this film. He considered a well-known original work to be an essential requirement for success.

Director Jang Sungho [Jo Haneul QK Pictures Writer]

Director Jang turned his attention to public domain works. Excluding those already adapted into feature-length animation, he selected thirty titles that appeared to have a low risk of failure. Among them, the one that stood out most was Charles Dickens' 'The Life of Our Lord.'

No matter how strong your planning skills are, failure is likely if you don't understand the local context. Leveraging the network he built as CEO of Mofac Studio, Director Jang personally recruited senior Hollywood figures. The first person he brought on board was Jamie Thomason, who spent 16 years at Disney and was responsible for casting more than ninety feature-length animated films.

He said, "If I had gone through multiple steps with brokers, I might have failed," and advised, "If you want to achieve results, you must jump directly into the mainstream." He also announced that his next project would follow a similar process.