Cinemas in South Korea are set to record their lowest attendance figures in more than two decades after a lacklustre first half of the year.
A total of 40.73 million people had attended theatres in the country through June 22, according to data released by the Korean Film Council, with projections of around 42 million by the end of the month. This is 33% down on the 62.93 million recorded for the first half of 2024 and would mark the lowest H1 performance since 2004, when 21.82 million tickets were sold.
This excludes the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. But even in 2022, as the industry worked to recover from closures due to Covid-19, some 44.92 million people visited theatres in the first half of that year.
It could also mean this year’s attendance could fall below 100 million, which the industry has remained above since 2005, and would mark a significant drop on the 123.12 million recorded in 2024. Figures peaked in 2019 with admissions reaching 226.67 million.
The biggest titles at the South Korean box office so far this year have been local feature Yadang: The Snitch, which recorded 3.37 million attendees following its release on April 16, and Hollywood blockbuster Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which has clocked up 3.31 million admissions since it opened on May 17.
Neither would have ranked more than seventh last year, which was led by local horror Exhuma on 11.91 million admissions, The Roundup: Punishment on 11.5 million and US animation Inside Out 2 with 8.8 million.
Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 also disappointed on the filmmaker’s home turf this year. The US production sold 3 million tickets, a notable drop on the director’s previous film, Parasite, which recorded more than 10 million admissions in 2019.
The latest figures were first reported by Korean newspaper Hankook Ilbo, which noted that the number of screens in the country has more than doubled from 1,648 in 2005 to 3,296 as of 2024.
It also said that experts equated the downturn to a combination of factors including the rise of streaming platforms and ongoing economic stagnation following the short-lived martial law imposition last December.
The ongoing slump could continue into next year, as the backlog of delayed releases during the pandemic has been exhausted – the last being recent release Hi-Five – and new productions have declined sharply.
Hope of a rebound at the box office is pinned on later this summer with local releases Omniscient Reader, My Daughter Is a Zombie and Pretty Crazy alongside US tentpoles Jurassic World Rebirth, Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
From mid-July, people may also receive up to two rounds of “living cost relief” vouchers and 4.5 million cinema discount coupons worth $19.6m (KRW27.1bn), subject to government approval. Each person could use up to four coupons, with a KRW6,000 discount per ticket.
This, along with major releases such as Avatar: Far And Ash later in the year, are hoped to push the annual figure above the symbolic 100 million mark.
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