Disney+ Says No. Kim Soo Hyun's Camp Says Yes. What Happens to Knock-Off?

Disney+ and Kim Soo Hyun's (김수현) legal camp are telling two very different stories about the fate of Knock-Off (노크오프), and the gap between them says everything about how complicated the situation has become.

On March 3, Disney+ officially denied reports that the shelved series was being slotted back into its 2026 lineup. "Reports that we are preparing to schedule Knock-Off for release this year are not true," the platform stated. "There are no additional updates beyond our previous statement."

But days earlier, Kim's attorney was saying the opposite.

The Lawyer's Take

On February 28, attorney Kho Sang-rok, who represents Kim Soo Hyun, posted a public statement saying Disney+ was "reportedly reorganizing its key content lineup for the first half of 2026 and coordinating the scheduling of Knock-Off." He called those reports "highly likely to be true."

He went further, framing the delay in explicitly legal and financial terms: "If Disney's risks are officially resolved, there will be no reason to delay the broadcast of Knock-Off any longer." He also maintained that there is "not a single photograph that substantiates claims of Kim Soo Hyun being in a relationship with Kim Sae Ron during her minor years."

That is a notably confident position for legal counsel to take on a matter involving a production that a major platform has been publicly sitting on for nearly a year.

The $40M Elephant in the Room

Knock-Off reportedly carries a production budget of 60 billion won, approximately $40.8 million USD. It was originally scheduled to premiere in April 2025, across 18 episodes in two parts. The black comedy crime drama stars Kim Soo Hyun as Kim Seong-jun, an ordinary office worker who loses his job during the 1997 IMF financial crisis and rises through the global counterfeit goods trade. Jo Bo Ah plays Song Hye-jung, his ex-girlfriend who becomes the special judicial police officer hunting him down.

Disney+ pulled the show from its release schedule just one month before its scheduled premiere, after Kim became embroiled in allegations that he had dated the late actress Kim Sae Ron when she was a minor. Since a press conference in March 2025, Kim has largely stayed out of public view.

For a platform with $40+ million tied up in a completed production, "no additional updates" is not a sustainable long-term answer. Industry sources reportedly told The Fair News that Disney+ had been in talks to slot the show into the first half of 2026 as part of a broader content lineup reorganization. Disney+ denies that. But the attorney for the series' lead actor is publicly saying otherwise, citing what he describes as broadcasting and financial sector intelligence.

What Actually Happens Next

The attorney's statement essentially laid out Disney+'s decision calculus in plain terms: if the platform determines that the legal exposure around Kim Soo Hyun has been resolved to an acceptable level, the financial incentive to release the show is overwhelming. A $40M production that never airs is a catastrophic write-down for any streamer.

The question is what "resolved" looks like. Korean authorities have been investigating the allegations against Kim. The attorney's position is that the investigation will ultimately clear his client. Disney+ is almost certainly waiting on that outcome, or at minimum on public sentiment data, before making any scheduling decision.

Jo Bo Ah, who plays the series' female lead, has kept a significantly lower profile since the show's postponement. Her career momentum is also tied to whatever Disney+ ultimately decides.

Queen of Tears, Kim Soo Hyun's previous drama, was one of the most-watched K-dramas in Netflix history. His commercial ceiling is enormous. That context matters to Disney+ as much as any legal consideration.

For now, the platform says no. The actor's legal team says yes. And somewhere in between, one of the most expensive K-dramas ever produced is waiting for someone to make a decision.