Lee Sung Jin Launches Lila Pictures, Two Netflix Shows — SkimNews
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- Lila Pictures was established by Lee Sung Jin under his recently renewed overall deal with Netflix, with Hyunji Ward hired as senior VP of Film & Television after stints at UTA and Dakota Johnson's TeaTime Pictures.
- The Only Child, a limited drama, will star Ali Wong, reuniting with Lee after Beef Season 1; Ava Wong Davies writes, and Wong also produces while playing the mother of a professional archer preparing to compete for her first gold medal.
- Citizen's Arrest, a drama series created by Beef Season 2 writer-producer Gene Hong, follows "two longtime friends and neighbors whose obsession with solving a local crime becomes an escape from the private crises neither is ready to face."
- Lee Sung Jin became the first Asian creator to collect multiple Emmy nominations across writing, directing and producing for the same series, with Beef earning 13 nominations in its debut season and 29 nominations with 11 wins across both seasons.
- Beef debuted in 2023, spent five weeks in Netflix's Global top 10 and reached the Top 10 in 87 countries, with Emmy nods for best limited series, writing, and acting for Ali Wong and Steven Yeun.
- Lee Sung Jin most recently wrote the X-Men script alongside Joanna Calo, is repped by WME and Hansen Jacobson, and teased that Lila Pictures will also extend into merchandise.
Why it matters: Netflix is turning a creator's renewed overall deal into a named banner with two titles already attached and a former UTA and TeaTime Pictures executive, Hyunji Ward, running film and television. The alumni factor is concrete: Wong and Hong both come from Beef, which carries 29 Emmy nominations and 11 wins across two seasons.
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