Peek at ‘Parasite’ Producer Miky Lee’s $50 Million Family Compound
“Parasite” is among the buzziest field workplace blockbusters in current reminiscence, the primary and solely non-English language movie to win one of the best image Oscar and one of the financially profitable Korean movies ever, having racked up greater than $250 million in worldwide receipts. It’s additionally a uniquely advanced image — half thriller, half black comedy and half drama brimming with socioeconomic class tensions.
The gripping, twisty movie tells the story of how a poor household infiltrates the lifetime of a wealthy one. And whereas the roller-coaster plot hijinks are surprising, director Bong Joon-ho is cuttingly apparent about his general thematic deal with financial inequality, main Selection to explain his work as “a tick fats with the bitter blood of sophistication rage.”
It’s considerably ironic, in fact, that “Parasite” was financed and distributed by CJ Leisure, the $four billion media juggernaut managed by leisure empress Miky Lee. Moreover Lee’s widespread affect over Korean media — CJ is a dominant pressure within the movie/TV/music industries’ manufacturing, licensing, financing and distribution arenas — she’s additionally an elite member of Korea’s wealthiest household of all of them: these Lees, the billionaire heirs to the fortune of Lee Byung-chul, the late founding father of the Samsung Group.
The Lees aren’t merely wealthy; they’re loopy wealthy. The richest member of the family, longtime Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee, is Korea’s wealthiest man — by a proverbial mile — making do with a internet price of $20 billion, in line with Forbes. However to essentially get an inkling of how important the Lee household is to South Korea’s financial system, it’s crucial to understand the sheer measurement of Samsung, which alone accounts for almost 20% of all the nation’s GDP.
Within the mid-1990s, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg and David Geffen started searching for outdoors funding assist for his or her fledgling movie studio. One of many first tycoons they wooed was Lee Kun-hee, who severely thought-about having Samsung dump a whole bunch of thousands and thousands into the challenge, although the talks finally broke down.
COPYRIGHT_BP: Published on https://bingepost.com/peek-at-parasite-producer-miky-lees-50-million-family-compound/55506/ by Cecilia Jones on 2020-03-09T08:38:32.000Z
Enter Lee Kun-hee’s niece Miky Lee, who was decided to strike a deal the place Samsung couldn’t. She persuaded her youthful brother Jay Lee, chairman of Cheil Jedang (CJ), a billion-dollar meals and biopharmaceuticals distributor, to speculate $300 million into the Katzenberg-Spielberg-Geffen dream. That preliminary capital, alongside $500 million from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, served as the idea for what grew to become DreamWorks SKG, the movie manufacturing label now price billions. Years later, Katzenberg himself would later remark that “There can be no DreamWorks with out the assistance of two individuals, one among whom is Miky Lee.”
Not solely did did CJ’s DreamWorks funding give the Lees an 11% stake within the American manufacturing powerhouse — plus the profitable distribution rights to all DreamWorks productions in each Asian nation besides Japan — it paved the best way for Miky Lee to construct her personal media empire, the idea of which now consists of arenas, live performance halls and film theaters throughout Asia. Behind her all of the whereas has been CJ Group and her brother — throughout her “Parasite” Academy Award acceptance speech, the primary particular person she thanked was Jay Lee.
And whereas Miky Lee technically resides in Orange County, it’s no secret the twin American-Korean citizen spends a big period of time at Futureland, her brother’s titanic compound within the mountains above Beverly Hills. The resort-like property sits on a personal ridge excessive above the L.A. basin and is definitely the biggest property in a small gated group the place different owners embrace Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis, HRH Prince Khalid Al-Faisal Alsaud of Saudi Arabia and billionaire Don Hankey.
Jay Lee purchased the eight-acre, three-parcel lot in 1997 for thousands and thousands, shortly after the DreamWorks funding was finalized, information present. Archived deeds reveal the property was initially acquired via the CJ Group, although the property is technically titled within the identify of an offshore company. Lee subsequently commissioned megamansion specialists JD Group to design a Mediterranean-style customized compound with a hilltop primary home that features almost 12,000 sq. ft of residing area and consists of an 8-car hooked up storage and an infinity swimming pool. A second parcel, which has a distinct deal with however is a part of the identical gated property, features a “visitor” mansion with properly over 5,000 sq. ft of residing area, plus a second infinity swimming pool — this one partially indoors and open air.
The Futureland property’s oddball identify derives from the Korean phrase “Mirezi” and resulted from the property being modeled as a residential tackle Everland, the Lee family-owned resort that’s South Korea’s largest theme park.
In keeping with tax information, Lee’s epic 90210 digs have been accomplished across the flip of the millennium. Within the 20 years since, nonetheless, a number of extra renovations and tasks have been accomplished: a golf course with sandtrap was lately eliminated and a brand new 8-car storage was added instead. The storage homes the overflow of Lee’s major-league unique automobile assortment, together with what’s believed to be his automotive crown jewel: a banana-yellow 2003 Ferrari Enzo, one of many rarest fashionable supercars in existence, with lower than 1,500 miles on the odometer.
The “guesthouse” additionally presents what is maybe the property’s wildest function: a rooftop tennis court docket that gives gamers with spectacular vistas over the encircling mountains, although it’s probably various errant tennis balls have been launched over the cliff’s edge, by no means to be seen once more.
As a result of Futureland has by no means been (publicly) supplied on the market and has no fast neighbors, it’s troublesome to evaluate its market worth. However the property is extra spectacular than most properties in close by Beverly Park, the unique guard-gated group the place homes have offered for as much as $40 million. The Lee property straight overlooks Beverly Park, lording over that celeb-filled group like some kind of haughty, low-slung lighthouse on the hill.
With all of its quite a few facilities — the 2 infinity-edged swimming swimming pools, rooftop tennis court docket, garaging for at the least 16 vehicles, two imposing mansions, a guardhouse, golf greens and spectacular mountaintop views, to not point out Eight acres of land and complete privateness — it appears logical to imagine the property might be price $50 million right this moment, or maybe much more.
And like the rich household in “Parasite,” Lee retains a full-time workers at his architectural house: there’s a live-in property supervisor, prepare dinner and housekeeper. Full-time gardeners maintain the place tidy and 24/7 personal safety is offered by off-duty LAPD officers. No phrase on any hidden panic rooms buried deep beneath the bottom, nonetheless.
