American Idol’s Lythgoe, MY Entertainment join Something Special projects

Michael Yudin’s MY Entertainment Productions is producing a pilot of spooky competition format Quizzy Horror Show, while American Idol’s Simon Lythgoe has been attached as showrunner for the New York-based company’s musical competition format Smashed Hits.

Jin Woo Hwang

Both formats were acquired by MY Entertainment from Something Special, the Seoul-based international format agency founded by Jin Woo Hwang, president and executive director, and InSoon Kim, executive VP and head of content.

Quizzy Horror Show, created by Jiyoon Kim, and Smashed Hits, created by Eunseol Mo, were developed during the South Korea cultural agency Kocca’s Format Lab Fund last year.

The Format Lab Fund gives winning companies funding to select three teams of top-tier Korean creative producers to develop new paper formats. Something Special has won the fund again this year for the third time consecutively.

Something Special is also the recipient of Kocca’s International Co-Production Fund, with the investment being used to develop Smashed Hits with MY Entertainment and Lythgoe (Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings, So You Think You Can Dance).

Hwang and Kim said: “We are honoured to be recognised by Kocca with these two fantastic funds and will be utilising them by collaborating with both Michael Yudin and other companies to promote Korean content and highlight the work of our talented Korean producers to the world. We are also thrilled to have Simon Lythgoe attached to Smashed Hits and, with his participation, this is sure to be the next global hit which initiated in Korea.”

Yudin, president of MY Entertainment, said: “Some six months ago we started our relationship with Something Special, already knowing the quality of the partners, involved. As many of these relationships are good press, they often, through nobody’s fault go to the wayside. We are thrilled to have won the fund for Quizzy, and just as proud that Simon thought enough of Smashed Hits to come on board for the project. It goes to show ‘true’ collaboration, with mutual respect for one another can and does in fact do work.”