South Korea’s film industry slowed a decline in takings during the second year of the pandemic with market earnings down 3.5% to $842.6m.
A report by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) into sales and distribution on all platforms as well as exports of rights and services revealed that takings were down year-on-year from an estimated $872.5m in 2020.
However, it is far from the dramatic drop of 58% experienced after the first year of the pandemic, when takings fell from the $2.07bn recorded in 2019.
The main cause of the decline last year was the delay in theatrical releases for anticipated Korean films, according to the government-funded organisation.
Since the start of the pandemic, local box office has endured a vicious cycle where highly anticipated local titles have held back their theatrical releases due to lack of audiences, and audiences have stayed home due to a lack of big features.
South Koreans went to the cinema 1.17 times per capita last year, up slightly from 1.15 in 2020, but still significantly down from 4.37 in 2019.
Cinema ticket sales rose slightly by 1.7% year-on-year to a total of $483.9m in 2021, which was still only 30.5% of 2019’s box office.
Among distributors, Disney took 24.3% of theatrical admissions with titles such as Eternals, Black Widow, Cruella, Soul and Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, while Sony followed with 13.9% with titles including Spider-Man: No Way Home and Venom: Let There Be Carnage.
Lotte was the only local distributor in the top five rankings this year with 9%, from releases including Escape From Mogadishu and A Quiet Place Part II.
UPI took 8.8% market share and Warner Bros took 7%. CJ E&M fell out of the top three distributor rankings for the first time since 2003 with 6.9%.
Exports breakdown
Having risen 13.3% in 2020, Korean film industry exports fell 41.8% to $48.6m in 2021 as the impact of the pandemic on production were felt.
KOFIC’s tally of exports normally includes sales of completed films as well as technical and locations services, but this year, due to a lack of overseas projects coming to shoot on location, the organisation said it could not include locations income in this tally due to lack of any “significant data”. Locations generated $19.7m in 2020.
Exports of technical services alone, such as VFX and equipment sales, plummeted 81% to $5.6m.
Also, due to the struggle fixing release dates for titles in the pandemic, completed film sales dropped 20.5% year-on-year to record a total of $43m. Export of completed films in 2020 had risen 43%, mostly due to sales to global OTT platforms.
KOFIC noted the revenues from Yeon Sang-ho’s zombie thriller Peninsula coming in after theatrical release across Asia helped keep numbers up, along with continued income from OTT platforms.
Most notably, mainland China – which had been experiencing an unofficial freeze on Korean content due to a souring in diplomatic relations – accounted for $8.4m and became the top buyer of Korean film rights, breaking its own record from 2014 when the country spent $8.2m on Korean films.
Part of this was down to the buzz surrounding Kim Tae-yong’s upcoming sci-fi fantasy Wonderland, starring Chinese actress Tang Wei, and the steady sales of remake rights to films such as the comedy Secret Zoo, disaster thriller Sinkhole and romance film Always.
With improved diplomatic relations between South Korea and China, the comedy Oh! My Gran became the first Korean film to be released there in six years, more than a year after its release in Korea. Released December 3, the film took $250,000 in its first four days, according to KOFIC.
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