Local revenues boom for South Korean films

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Box Office News

South Korean films enjoyed a 22% growth in revenue last year, according to new data from the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) 영화진흥위원회.

Nationwide, admissions grew by 8% to 158 million, while box office revenues grew in local currency terms by 7% to ￦1.23 trillion ($1.10 billion).

As had been foreshadowed last week in an announcement from the Ministry of Culture, KOFIC showed that films made in South Korea accounted for 52% of ticket sales and 49.8% of revenue. That compares with shares of 47% and 44% respectively in 2010.

While the market share figures make for good headlines, the underlying trend is more dramatic. South Korean films saw their collective revenue increase a massive 22% from ￦504 billion ($450 million) to ￦612 billion ($546 million). Imported films, while accounting for two thirds of releases, saw their revenues slip by 4% from ￦645 billion ($575 million) to ￦617 billion ($550 million).

The overall number of films getting theatrical releases and the mix of local and imported scarcely budged in 2011, with 166 local titles getting outings in 2011 (compared with 168 in 2010). Foreign film release edged ahead from 314 in 2010 to 320 in 2011. Overall 486 films debuted in Korean theatres last year, compared with 482 in 2010.

CJ E&M Corp remained the country's top distributor – both of local films and international titles. With a combined 44 films released, and six of the top ten, it sold 57.9 million tickets, for a gross revenue total of ￦461 billion ($411 million). That was 37.5% of the country's overall box office. Lotte Entertainment 롯데엔터테인먼트 which released 29 titles had a 14.5% box office share, worth ￦181 billion ($161 million). Indie distributor Next Entertainment World ＮＥＷ placed third with 9% of admissions and 8.8% of box office revenue. The biggest Hollywood company was the combined Sony Pictures Releasing (Korea) Buena Vista 한국 소니 픽쳐스 릴리징 브에나 비스타, which had 8.5% of ticket sales and 8.9% of gross revenue.

The year's top film was Transformers: Dark of the Moon, whose widest release at one point hit 1,409 of the country's 2,000 screens, for an end of run cumulative total of ￦74.8 billion ($66.7 million). Top-placed Korean film was Lotte's 3-D War of the Arrows 최종병기 활 (pictured), which sold 7.47 million tickets, close to the 7.87 million admissions for the Transformers sequel, but Arrows trailed in cash terms with a box office of ￦55.8 billion ($49.8 million).

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