COVID-19 Theater Scene, Unreleased Films Take the Top Spot at the Box Office...

On the 27th, 19,837 Theatergoers... 'Jeo San Neomeo' Attracted the Most with 2,826 Attendees at the Premiere

Movie 'Beyond That Mountain' Still Cut

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Jong-gil] Although the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) situation is showing signs of calming down, the drought in the cinema industry shows no sign of relief. A film that has not been officially released has even topped the box office.

According to the Korea Film Council's integrated ticket sales network on the 28th, the number of moviegoers who visited theaters the previous day was 19,837. After recording 18,871 on the 20th, the number fell back to the 10,000 range again after a week. This month, the days with attendance in the 10,000 range were only eight. On the other hand, there has not been a single day with over 50,000 attendees. The attendance has hovered between 10,000 and 40,000, attracting only 768,146 people over 28 days. Converted into sales, this amounts to 6,045,527,900 KRW.

The overall seat occupancy rate that day was 2.7%. On screens with 100 seats, only two or three people visited. The only films that secured more than 10,000 seats and exceeded a 3% occupancy rate were Cinema Paradiso (3.4%) and After the Wedding in New York (3.2%). The re-released Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron, brought back at the request of theaters, both remained at 1.4%. They secured the third (65,005 seats) and fourth (64,500 seats) highest number of seats respectively but failed to meet expectations. La La Land, which secured the most seats (92,616 seats), also only achieved 2.7%. 1917, which secured over 80,000 seats (80,012 seats), also performed poorly with a 2.9% occupancy rate.

Movie 'Avengers' still cut

Amid the poor performance of officially released films, the box office leader was Beyond That Mountain, which depicts the childhood of Cardinal Kim Su-hwan (1922?2009). It secured 5,096 seats and attracted 2,826 viewers, all of whom were attendees of a preview screening. A preview screening refers to a trial screening held before a film is publicly released. This is the first time in the history of Korean cinema that a film attracting audiences in this manner has topped the box office. The re-released La La Land ranked second with 2,453 viewers, and 1917, released on February 19, ranked third with 2,290 viewers. Following were After the Wedding in New York (1,024 viewers), Avengers (928 viewers), Avengers: Age of Ultron (883 viewers), Search Out (831 viewers), and Cinema Paradiso (681 viewers).

The re-releases of Avengers: Endgame and Avengers: Infinity War scheduled for this week also seem insufficient to significantly change the atmosphere. As of 2 a.m. on the 28th, the number of reserved tickets stood at 9,955 and 7,004 respectively. Beyond That Mountain had 8,199 reservations, the black-and-white version of Parasite had 6,255, and Trolls: World Tour had 6,143.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.