Gong Yoo attends the 'Train To Busan' photocall during the 69th Annual Cannes Film Festival on May 14, 2016 in Cannes, France. (Photo : Getty Images/Andreas Rentz)
Gong Yoo's popularity has risen to another level following the tremendous success of the tvN drama "Goblin." The 37-year-old actor, who starred as the titular character in the 16-episode fantasy series, is this month's reputational champ.
On Feb. 18, Saturday, the Korean Business Research Institute released the brand reputation rankings among film actors for the month of February. To come up with the list, they compiled 72,745,586 pieces of data for the period of Jan. 16 until Feb. 17, Friday. The said data included the actors' brand notoriety index, media coverage, communication, and community.
Gong topped the brand reputation list with a total score of 10,728,767, pushing Jo In Sung and Yoo Hae Jin to the second and third spot, respectively, according to data from the Korean Business Research Insitute, as cited by Soompi. "The Producers'" Kim Soo Hyun came in fourth place, while "The Legend of the Blue Sea's" Jun Ji Hyun and "The King's" Jung Woo Sung is in the fifth and sixth spot.
The "Tunnel" actor Ha Jung-Woo came in seventh place along with Kang Dong Won and Lee Byung Hun in the eighth and ninth spot, respectively. Hwang Jung Min, who recently made his big screen comeback through Lee II-Hyeong's "A Violent Prosecutor," rounded out the top 10.
Even though Gong's tvN drama ended more than three weeks ago, the actor still enjoys tremendous popularity abroad. He has received several fan meeting offers from 15 different countries, including the United States, Australia, Japan and China. Gong, however, had fully booked his schedule until March.
"Currently, Gong Yoo is extremely busy filming for commercials," a representative from Management Soop said in a statement obtained by Korea Boo. "We think he will be taking a break away from schedules from mid-March and onwards."
The representative added that the actor will use this opportunity to figure out what he wants to do next. While nothing is set in stone yet, there is a high possibility that his next project will be a movie rather than a TV drama.
For now, check out Gong as Kim Shin in tvN's "Goblin" below:
