Foot Traffic to Movie Theaters Comes to a Complete Halt

Impact of COVID-19 Resurgence... Only 63,788 Cases on 24th
Seat Occupancy Rate Fails to Exceed 10%... Arrival of a Barren Period

The number of visitors to movie theaters has sharply declined. According to the Korea Film Council's integrated ticketing system on the 25th, the number of viewers who visited theaters the previous day (24th) was 63,788. This is the first time in over a month since the 27th of last month, when 98,763 viewers were recorded, that the number did not exceed 100,000. It is also the lowest since the 14th of last month, when 48,767 viewers attended.

The sharp decrease was almost expected. As the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) surged again, the daily number of viewers remained in the 100,000 range from the 18th to the 23rd. Some theaters suspended operations due to visits by confirmed COVID-19 cases, and even new releases were canceled one after another, leading to another barren period.

The poor trend is also evident in seat occupancy rates. No movie securing more than 1,000 seats exceeded a 10% occupancy rate. The film that attracted the most viewers, "Daman Akeseo Guhasoseo (Deliver Us from Evil)" (30,408 viewers), recorded only 3.4%. "Okay Madam" (15,368 viewers) and "Geukjangpan Jjanggu-neun Motmallyeo: Sinhon-yeohaeng Heorikein (Crayon Shin-chan: Honeymoon Hurricane)" (5,780 viewers) also performed poorly with 2.8% and 5.2%, respectively. The combined box office share of these three films was 82.3%.

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