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BTS Absence Hurting Global K-Pop Growth, Says HYBE Chairman

In this file photo taken on January 15, 2019, South Korean boy band BTS, also known as the Bangtan Boys, pose on the red carpet at the 28th Seoul Music Awards in Seoul. (AFP)
In this file photo taken on January 15, 2019, South Korean boy band BTS, also known as the Bangtan Boys, pose on the red carpet at the 28th Seoul Music Awards in Seoul. (AFP)
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BTS Absence Hurting Global K-Pop Growth, Says HYBE Chairman

In this file photo taken on January 15, 2019, South Korean boy band BTS, also known as the Bangtan Boys, pose on the red carpet at the 28th Seoul Music Awards in Seoul. (AFP)
In this file photo taken on January 15, 2019, South Korean boy band BTS, also known as the Bangtan Boys, pose on the red carpet at the 28th Seoul Music Awards in Seoul. (AFP)

Making megastars BTS do their South Korean military service is slowing the global growth of K-pop, the chairman of the septet's agency HYBE said Wednesday.

The boyband are widely considered South Korea's biggest-ever cultural phenomenon, selling out stadiums around the world and dominating the charts while raking in billions for the country's economy and building a global legion of fans known as ARMYs.

But all able-bodied men in South Korea must serve at least 18 months in the military and, after a years-long debate about whether BTS deserved an exemption, Jin, the oldest member of the group, enlisted in December.

Bang Si-hyuk, chairman of HYBE and the mastermind behind BTS, said figures -- including global ratings and album sales -- now showed declining demand for K-pop.

"The absence of BTS is the first reason," Bang said.

"I think it's very clear that the fact BTS is not active as a team is playing the biggest role in bringing about this change in numbers," he told a forum in Seoul.

BTS are the most prominent K-pop figures globally, he said, adding: "The market narrows significantly when BTS is taken out."

His comments come days after HYBE suspended a controversial bid to acquire control of rival SM Entertainment, ending a lengthy, high-profile feud over the company's management.

He was accused of a hostile takeover and seeking to monopolize K-pop, but Bang defended his move as a solution to K-pop's slowing growth.

J-Hope next

HYBE announced last month that a second BTS member, J-Hope, has "initiated the military enlistment process", with local media reporting he was due to enlist in April.

On Sunday, J-Hope appeared on a late night music talk show on KBS and said goodbye to fans, telling them: "I will be back soon from the military."

Since their debut in 2013, BTS have been credited with generating billions for their country, as well as boosting the image and soft power of South Korea -- now a global cultural powerhouse.

They have been invited to speak at the United Nations, and to meet US President Joe Biden at the White House.

But analysts have questioned what the future holds for the group after all seven members complete their military service.

Some male K-pop stars have struggled to resume their careers after military service in a cut-throat industry where artists are easily replaceable.

"Obviously, I think it's true that enlisting in the military means the continuity of a person's career or their value as a national asset is damaged," said HYBE chairman Bang.

"However, I think it's a completely different matter for an individual to happily accept the duty of the military," he added, saying he was "happy" about the decisions by the BTS members.

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Movie Review: The Villains Steal the Show in ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’

From left, Pedro Pascal, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn arrive at the premiere of "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" on Monday, July 21, 2025, at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
From left, Pedro Pascal, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn arrive at the premiere of "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" on Monday, July 21, 2025, at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
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Movie Review: The Villains Steal the Show in ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’

From left, Pedro Pascal, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn arrive at the premiere of "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" on Monday, July 21, 2025, at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
From left, Pedro Pascal, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn arrive at the premiere of "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" on Monday, July 21, 2025, at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

More than six decades after Jack Kirby and Stan Lee created a superhero team to rival the Justice League, the Fantastic Four finally get a worthy big-screen adaption in a spiffy ’60s-era romp, bathed in retrofuturism and bygone American optimism.

Though the Fantastic Four go to the very origins of Marvel Comics, their movie forays have been marked by missteps and disappointments. The first try was a Roger Corman-produced, low-budget 1994 film that was never even released.

But, after some failed reboots and a little rights maneuvering, Matt Shakman’s “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” is the first Fantastic Four movie released by Marvel Studios. And a sense of returning to Marvel roots permeates this one, an endearingly earnest superhero drama about family and heroism, filled with modernist “Jetsons” designs that hark back to a time when the future held only promise.

“First Steps,” with a title that nods to Neil Armstrong, quickly reminds that before the Fantastic Four were superheroes, they were astronauts. Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) and Ben Grimm (a soulful Ebon Moss-Bachrach) flew into space but return altered by cosmic rays. “We came back with anomalies,” explains Reed, sounding like me after a family road trip.

They are now, respectively, the bendy Mister Fantastic, the fast-disappearing Invisible Woman, the fiery Human Torch and the Thing, a craggy CGI boulder of a man. In the glimpses of them as astronauts, the images are styled after NASA footage of Apollo 11, like those seen in the great documentaries “For All Mankind” and “Apollo 11.”

But part of the fun of the Fantastic Four has always been that while the foursome might have the right stuff, they also bicker and joke and argue like any other family. The chemistry here never feels intimate enough in “First Steps” to quite capture that interplay, but the cast is good, particularly Kirby.

In the first moments of “First Steps,” Sue sets down a positive pregnancy test before a surprised Reed. That night at dinner — Moss-Bachrach, now an uncle rather than a cousin, is again at work in the kitchen — Ben and Johnny immediately guess what’s up. The rest of the world is also eager to find out what, if any, powers the baby will have.

We aren’t quite in our world, but a very similar parallel one called Earth-828. New York looks about the same, and world leaders gather in a version of the United Nations named the Future Foundation. The Thing wears a Brooklyn Dodgers cap. Someone sounding a lot like Walter Cronkite reads the news.

And there’s a lot to read when the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) suddenly hovers over the city, announcing: “I herald your end. I herald Galactus.” The TV blares, as it could on so many days: “Earth in Peril. Developing Story.”

Yes, the Earth (or some Earth) might be in danger, but did you get a look at that Silver Surfer? That’s Johnny Storm’s response, and perhaps ours, too. She's all chrome, like a smelted Chrysler Building, with slicked-back hair and melancholy eyes. He’s immediately taken by her, but she shoots off into space. In a rousing, NASA-like launch (the original Kirby and Lee comic came eight years before the moon landing), the Fantastic Four blast off into the unknown to meet this Galactus.

But if the Silver Surfer made an impression, Galactus (voiced by Ralph Ineson) does even more so. Fantastic Four movies have always before gone straight for Doctor Doom as a villain, but his entrance, this time, is being held up for “Avengers: Doomsday.” Still, Galactus, a planet-eating tyrant, is no slouch. A mechanical colossus and evident fan of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis,” he sits on an enormous throne in space. Sensing enormous power in Sue’s unborn child, he offers to spare Earth for the baby.

What follows casts motherhood — its empowerments and sacrifices — onto a cosmic plane. There’s a nifty chase sequence in space that plays out during contractions. The two “Incredibles” movies covered some similar ground, in both retro design and stretchy parent and superhuman baby, with notably more zip and comic verve than “The Fantastic Four.” That's part of the trouble of not getting a proper movie for so long: Better films have already come along inspired by the '60s comic.

But as good as Vanessa Kirby is in “First Steps,” the movie is never better than when the Silver Surfer or Galactus are around. Shakman, a former child actor who’s directed mostly in television (most relevantly, “WandaVision”), proves especially adept at capturing the enormous scale of Galactus. “First Steps” may be, at heart, a kaiju movie.

What it certainly is, though, is a very solid comic book movie. It’s a little surface over substance, and the time capsule feeling is pervasive. This is an earnest-enough superhero movie where even the angry mob protesting the superheroes turns quiet and pensive. I was more likely to be moved by a really handsome chalkboard than I was by its vision of motherhood.

But, especially for a superhero team that’s never before quite taken flight on screen, “First Steps” is a sturdy beginning, with impeccable production design by Kasra Farahani and a rousing score by Michael Giacchino. Even if the unifying space-age spirit of Kirby and Lee's comic feels very long ago, indeed.