The Crisis of Movie Theater Survival... Even 10,000 Daily Visitors at Risk

Record Lowest Daily Visitors in a Week Again
Uncontrollable Growing Losses... Continuous Business Suspensions

On the 7th, a day before the government’s implementation of raising the social distancing level to 2.5 in the Seoul metropolitan area, a movie theater in downtown Seoul is less crowded than usual. Photo by Mun Ho-nam munonam@

Movie theaters are literally facing the crisis of survival. The number of daily visitors barely exceeds 10,000, showing a worsening trend.

According to the Korea Film Council's integrated ticketing system on the 12th, the number of visitors to movie theaters the previous day was 10,776. This is the lowest since the Korea Film Council began official statistics in 2004. It broke the record for the lowest daily attendance of 14,519 set just a week ago on the 4th. The overall seat occupancy rate was only 1.5%. In a theater with 100 seats, fewer than two people entered.

The grim reality is clearly reflected in the box office as well. The leader, "Wonder Woman 1984," attracted only 3,107 viewers across 819 screens. The second place, "Hwayangyeonhwa," drew 1,412 viewers (342 screens), and the other films failed to reach 1,000 viewers. These include "Mr. Jones" (719 viewers), "Josee" (679 viewers), "Dogul" (535 viewers), and "Perfect Family" (457 viewers).

This is not just a weekday problem. The number of viewers over the past weekend (8th?10th) was 80,739. It was the first time since the second weekend of April last year (10th?12th), which recorded 98,693 viewers, that the number failed to reach 100,000. Amid this sluggish trend, the number of viewers this month has remained at 303,713 as of the 11th.

This unprecedented slump is almost a foregone conclusion. Due to the government's social distancing level 2.5, operations are suspended after 9 p.m. Movie theaters cannot effectively accommodate viewers from 7 p.m. due to running times of 1 hour 30 minutes to 2 hours. For "Wonder Woman 1984," which runs 2 hours and 31 minutes, the deadline is 6:20 p.m. With no major or mid-sized films scheduled to open soon except Walt Disney Company's animation "Soul" (on the 20th), a thorny path is expected for some time.

A multiplex official said, "Losses have become uncontrollable, and more theaters are suspending operations." Another official appealed, "It seems difficult to rebound until next month, which includes the Lunar New Year holiday. Government support is more urgent than ever."

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