The Era of 10,000 Won Movie Tickets Has Begun

OTT Sales Increase 64.8% to 160.8 Billion Won

Domestic movie ticket prices exceeded 10,000 won for the first time ever last year.

According to the '2022 Korean Film Industry Report' released by the Korean Film Council on the 20th, the average movie ticket price last year was 10,285 won, a 6.5% increase from 9,656 won the previous year.

[Photo by Yonhap News]

This appears to be due to theaters raising ticket prices three times after the COVID-19 pandemic to offset operating losses. Recently, weekend ticket prices at major multiplexes have been around 15,000 won.

Theater sales amounted to 1.1602 trillion won, a 98.5% increase from the previous year, but only 60.6% of the 2019 level. The number of viewers was 112.81 million, an 86.4% increase from the previous year, but only 49.8% compared to 2019. Global box office revenue was $25.169 billion (32.6316 trillion won), with Korea ranking 7th worldwide in terms of sales.

The average annual number of theater visits per person increased by 1.02 times from the previous year to 2.19 times, recovering to about half the level of 2019.

Sequels produced thanks to the success of previous films dominated the box office rankings. Last year, the top box office revenue was 131.2 billion won (12.69 million viewers) for 'Beomjoedosi 2' (Crime City 2), becoming the first film to surpass 10 million viewers. The second place was 'Avatar: The Way of Water' with 90.3 billion won in revenue (7.31 million viewers). Third place was 'Top Gun: Maverick' with 87.9 billion won (8.18 million viewers). Fourth was 'Hansan: Rising Dragon' with 73.7 billion won (7.26 million viewers), and fifth was 'Gongjo 2: International' (Confidential Assignment 2: International) with 70.9 billion won (6.98 million viewers).

Last year, domestic special screenings (4D, IMAX, ScreenX, Dolby Cinema) generated 126.4 billion won in revenue, a 271.2% increase from the previous year. The number of viewers was 8.65 million, a 252.2% increase from the previous year. Special screening revenue accounted for 10.9% of total revenue, and the viewer share was 7.7%.

[Photo by Yonhap News]

The number of independent and art film releases last year totaled 357, a 20.7% decrease from the previous year.

Among all releases, 36 commercial films had a net production cost of over 3 billion won. The average total production cost for Korean commercial films was 12.46 billion won. The average net production cost was 9.99 billion won, and P&A costs were 2.47 billion won. Of the 36 commercial films, only 7 (19.4%) surpassed the break-even point (BEP).

Last year, the market size outside theaters was 453.9 billion won, an 18.3% increase from the previous year. TV VOD market revenue was 253 billion won, accounting for the largest share of 55.7% in the non-theatrical market. Internet VOD grew 59.2% from the previous year to 169.9 billion won, and online video streaming services (OTT) increased by 64.8% to 160.8 billion won. DVD and Blu-ray sales were 7.7 billion won, and movie broadcasting rights for TV channels generated 23.3 billion won in revenue.

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