Kim Hye Yoon & Byeon Woo Seok's Hit Streak

Actors Kim Hye-yun and Byeon Woo-seok, who gained immense popularity through the tvN drama ‘Lovely Runner’, are achieving concurrent box office success with their respective projects.

Kim Hye-yun has proven her presence by taking on her first horror film in ‘The Devil’s Tomb’. ‘The Devil’s Tomb’ surpassed 1.6 million viewers in just 16 days after its release, breaking the 1 million viewer mark within 10 days and continuing its steady box office run after exceeding the break-even point of 800,000 viewers. The film is a horror movie that tells the story of a film crew who, after an unidentified figure is captured on road view, visit a reservoir for reshoots and encounter something in the deep water. Kim Hye-yun played the role of PD Soo-in, leading the narrative. With this work, Kim Hye-yun is being praised for shedding her previous lovely image and successfully earning the title of ‘​Horror Queen’.

Byeon Woo-seok is continuing his box office success on the small screen with the MBC Friday-Saturday drama ‘​The 21st Century Crown Princess’. Starting with a premiere viewership rating of 7.8%, ‘The 21st Century Crown Princess’ broke into double digits, recording 11.1% by its fourth episode. The drama is set in a 21st-century constitutional monarchy in South Korea and depicts the fated romance between Sung Hee-ju (played by IU), a chaebol heiress with everything, and Prince Ian (played by Byeon Woo-seok), the son of a king but unable to possess anything. Byeon Woo-seok is captivating female audiences with his role as Prince Ian, who effectively leads the royal family in place of his young nephew who has suddenly ascended to the throne. Much attention was focused on Byeon Woo-seok’s first project after ‘Lovely Runner’, and breaking 11% within four episodes raises expectations for new viewership records in the latter half of the series.

Kim Hye-yun and Byeon Woo-seok previously starred as Im Sol and Ryu Sun-jae, respectively, in the 2024 tvN drama ‘​Lovely Runner’, creating a syndrome-level popularity. Even after its conclusion, ‘Lovely Runner’ proved its enduring popularity by ranking in the top 10 on Watcha Pedia for eight consecutive weeks.

In the big data analysis results for actor brand reputation in April released by the Korea Corporate Reputation Research Institute, Byeon Woo-seok ranked 2nd, while Kim Hye-yun ranked 4th, recording the highest increase rate with a 123.96% surge from the previous month. Byeon Woo-seok’s ranking is analyzed to reflect the box office success of the romantic comedy genre, and Kim Hye-yun showed a high upward trend due to her performance in ‘The Devil’s Tomb’.