Korea Box Office in 2023 Finishes 44% Below Pre-Pandemic Levels
03.01.2024 - 07:07
/ variety.com
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief A strong December for local films helped make up for an otherwise miserable 2023 at the South Korean box office – previously the fifth largest cinema territory worldwide.
And while theatrical markets in other major territories have recovered to reach at or near pre-pandemic levels, Korea finished 44% below 2019.
Data from the Korean Film Council’s Kobis tracking service showed annual gross revenues of KRW1.261 trillion ($964 million at Jan 2024 rates of exchange) in 2023. That represented a gain of 9% on 2022, but it was far below the KRW1.91 trillion ($1.46 billion) recorded in 2019, the last pre-COVID year.
The bleak trend was mirrored in terms of attendance or ticket sales, which remains the country’s preferred performance measure.
Cinema attendance reached 125 million in 2023, an 11% increase compared with the 113 million recorded in 2022, but 45% below 2019’s 227 million.
Kobis’ monthly data describe a year of peaks and troughs. Powered by holdover title “Avatar: The Way of Water,” 2023 started brightly enough, with a strong January.
But February, March and April represented a bleak quarter that was particularly desperate for Korean films. Used to commanding about half of the annual total, these earned a meager 25% of the nationwide box office.
Summer was brighter, with Korean-produced “The Roundup: No Way Out,” “The Smugglers” and “Concrete Utopia” earning respectively $79.9 million, $37.9 million and $28.5 million.
“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1,” with $30.8 million, and “Oppenheimer,” with $26.2 million, were the two biggest import successes of the summer season. (“Barbie,” in contrast, was a notable flop with just $4.38 million.)
But, as summer turned to autumn,
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