2011-2012

2011–2012: Wonder World and further international ventures

Main articles: Wonder World (album), Wonder Party, and Nobody for Everybody

Wonder Girls performing "Be My Baby" at 2011 Korea Entertainment Awards. From left to right: Sohee, Sunye, Yubin, Yeeun, Hyerim

In January 2011, more information was released about the English-language album. JYP Entertainment's CEO Park Jin-young hinted on his Twitter account that he had written a new song for the group while recording in the drama Dream High^[50] and later tweeted that he was not the only producer for this album.^[51] Rainstone of JYP Entertainment said that the album was expected to have six to seven tracks. Producer Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins and the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Claude Kelly were revealed to be participating in the album and that the album was to be released by one of the three major labels of America.
On June 30, it was announced on their official website that the girls had been invited to perform at the 2011 Special Olympics closing ceremonies in Athens, Greece. They performed the traditional Korean folk song "Arirang" along with "Nobody" sung in English and "Tell Me" sung in Korean. On August 5, The Wonder Girls appeared on Billboard.com's Mashup Monday program, performing a self-arranged cover version of B.o.B and Bruno Mars' "Nothin' on You".^[52] On October 9, 2011, a representative revealed, "The [English-language] album will be produced in a movie OST format. We’ll be planning our concept to fit around the feel of the song, so as opposed to retro, we feel that it will be more pop. The Wonder Girls will definitely be coming out with a new image, so please look forward to it."
On October 23, JYPE revealed a new poster, "R U Ready?", hanging over their company's building with a new version of the Wonder Girls' logo. Wonder World was announced as the group's second full-length album and was released on 7 November 2011 along with the single "Be My Baby". The album featured more writing and production input from the group members. Promotions for Wonder World began with a comeback stage on Music Bank on November 11 and continued through January 2012.^[53]

Wonder Girls performing during the Wonder World Tour in Singapore on September 8, 2012.

The group returned to American activities with their made-for-TV movie The Wonder Girls in early 2012. "The DJ Is Mine," an English-language song featuring School Gyrls, was released as a promotional tie-in single for the movie on January 11. "The DJ Is Mine" reached number one on several Korean charts. The movie premiered on February 2 on the TeenNick channel, and featured the then-unreleased English song "Like Money". Following the release of the movie, the group received proposals from major broadcasting companies in the United States, and were in talks concerning full U.S. promotions and activities for their debut English-language album. The twelve-track album was said to have been completed and was scheduled for a summer 2012 release.^[54]
In June 2012, the group made a Korean comeback. The group released their mini-album Wonder Party on June 3, 2012. The album's lead single, "Like This", premiered on the same day. In mid-June, it was announced that the group would be making their debut in Japan under DefStar Records, with a release of a Japanese-language version of "Nobody". The single release was called "Nobody for Everybody" and was released on July 25.^[55]
On 10 July 2012, a new version of "Like Money" that featured Akon was released as a single in the United States, in what would become their last completely English-language release as a group. In early September 2012, the group performed three new songs from their then-upcoming English-language album at an iHeartRadio concert. On 29 October 2012, Wonder Girls participated in a joint-interview with Nick Cannon in which they discussed the release of their English-language album as well as a new show showcasing the Wonder Girls as a spin-off from their original movie.^[56] On 14 November, Wonder Girls released the compilation album Wonder Best in Japan, which included a new song, updated versions of older hit songs, and Japanese versions of their songs.