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mr1006

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Posts posted by mr1006

  1. Each of the big 4 local distributors released a tentpole this summer:

    • Smugglers: Next Entertainment World (NEW)
    • Ransomed: Showbox
    • The Moon: CJ ENM
    • Concrete Utopia: Lotte Entertainment

    Of these, only Smugglers has passed its breakeven point (4 million admissions) with 4.6 million so far.

     

    The Moon and Ransomed are not even close to passing their breakeven points of 6 million and 5 million, respectively. The Moon has 0.5 million admissions and Ransomed has 1.0 million admissions so far.

     

    Concrete Utopia currently has 2.3 million admissions so far and needs to reach 4.1 million admissions to break even.

     

    Korean distributors are still struggling post-COVID.

    • Like 1
  2. The biggest complaints on CGV seem to be:

    • it's long and boring (e.g., not a lot of action)
    • it's hard to understand without prior knowledge about US politics
    • there are too many characters, and it's hard to follow if you don't have background knowledge about the Manhattan Project
    • the nude scene 
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  3. It makes sense that walkups are weak - all the premium formats (IMAX, Dolby Cinema) and the regular theater screens that have reputations for being high quality are more or less sold out from pre-sales alone.

     

    It might have the same problem as Avatar 2 - people will wait to see it in higher-quality formats.

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  4. According to Jed Harmsen (Head of Cinema and Group Entertainment at Dolby), the Dolby Cinema with the highest attendance globally is at COEX Megabox, located in Seoul (interview in Korean). Also, Dolby Cinemas in Korea comprise 4 of the top 10 ranked by attendance globally, which is insane considering they just opened their 6th one this month.

     

    I think this is further proof that there is a lot of interest among Korean moviegoers in watching films in premium formats (IMAX, Dolby, etc.). Unfortunately, there are only 4 IMAX theaters and 1 Dolby Cinema located in Seoul, which means that competition to get the best seats is insane.

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  5. Typhoon Khanun is affecting Korea at the moment and is expected to pass through the country by the end of the day. Fortunately, the typhoon is weaker than initially feared, but it should still deter people from leaving their homes and going to the theaters.

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  6. 1 hour ago, TalismanRing said:

     

    How soon do they give notice?

    I think they’ll give you notice when they cancel the ticket (e.g., provide the refund). For the Parasite / Dark Phoenix example, I think the complaint was that the cinema gave no explanation for why the screenings were cancelled.

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  7. 8 hours ago, IronJimbo & Sheldon's Son said:

    I wonder how they manage to remove showtimes so fast, if you've pre-booked a ticket for a showtime that gets removed what happens? Do they refund you or give you an option to pick a seat at another showing that wasn't removed?

    I think they just refund you. I was able to find an article where people who booked Dark Phoenix complained that their showings were cancelled because the theaters wanted to show Parasite - apparently they just got refunds.

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  8. I mean the current #1 movie is a female led blockbuster. And of course Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 did really well in Korea. 

     

    IMO, Barbie didn't do well because:

     

    (1) Barbie isn't as culturally relevant in Korea. It was too expensive so people played with local brands like Mimi instead. Also apparently local brands appealed more to local beauty standards. (https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2012/03/29/features/At-30-Mimi-still-trounces-Barbie-in-Korea-/2950710.html)

     

    (2) the humor doesn't translate well, especially when the subtitles aren't great - WB usually works with Park Ji-hoon who is infamous for his mistranslations 

     

     

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  9. CGV Golden Egg (as of 5pm)

    The Moon: 85%

    Ransomed: 94%

     

    For comparison, Elemental is still at 98% and Smugglers is at 93%

     

    Naver Ratings:

    The Moon: 7.85 (66 reviews)

    Ransomed: 9.14 (78 reviews)

     

    For comparison, Elemental is at 8.94 (1,442 reviews) and Smugglers is at 8.13 (845 reviews

     

    Basically seems like The Moon has the worst audience reaction so far

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  10. 1 hour ago, keysersoze123 said:

    How many admissions did Tenet gross in Korea. Any comps with recent big hollywood movies including Avatar 2. 

    Tenet ended with 2,000,131 admissions.

     

    According to South Korea Pre-sales - Google Sheets, Avatar 2 had presales of 857,000 right before its release.

     

    Avatar 2 had a relatively disappointing OD (359,220 admissions - Korean media reported that CGV expected 450,000 admissions OD), but then great legs for the first 2-3 weeks (e.g. during the Christmas / Holiday season). It actually holds the record for most consecutive days over 200,000 admissions for a Hollywood movie (19 days). For comparison, the previous record holder was Endgame and Infinity War with 13 days.

    • Week 1 (Dec 14 - Dec 20) : 3,200,894 admissions
    • Week 2 (Dec 21 - Dec 27) : 2,815,174 admissions
    • Week 3 (Dec 28 - Jan 3) : 1,985,460 admissions
    • Final : 10,085,065 admissions

    And of course, due to high ATP (the movie was extremely popular on premium screens, like IMAX), it has the 2nd highest gross of all movies in Korea (in terms of local currency) with KRW 137.6 bn. 

    • Like 1
  11. Apparently summer vacation for the schools in the more southern provinces started this week (e.g. July 31st). Schools in Seoul and the northern provinces have been out for a couple of weeks (e.g. vacation started around July 20th) This explains the sharp increase in attendance on Monday/Tuesday.

    • Like 3
  12. Since there has been much discussion over how Japanese Twitter users have responded to Barbenheimer, I wanted to shed light on how Koreans have reacted to this controversy in both heavily female (e.g., Twitter) and male spaces (e.g., male-dominated online communities). They're calling out the "victim mentality," which downplays or even ignores the atrocities committed by the Japanese government against other Asian countries before and during World War II and simultaneously tries to portray the Japanese in a sympathetic light as the victims. Heavily upvoted comments say stuff like:

    • "You would think they're completely innocent victims."
    • "When you criticize the atrocities committed under Imperial Japan and ask for an apology, they coldly say, 'Our generation did not commit the crimes, so why are you asking us to apologize?' Under that logic, they should not be pissed about [Barbenheimer]. You can see their true intentions via their reaction [to Barbenheimer]."
    • "No one forced them to attack Pearl Harbor without declaring war. If you have issues with what happened after, complain to His Majesty the Emperor."

    It also reminds me of how the sympathetic portrayal of the Hiroshima /Nagasaki bombings in Eternals was highly controversial in Korea, especially after the writers did an interview discussing how their background as Japanese Americans affected how they wrote the scene.

     

    My point is that different countries in Asia will have widely differing reactions to how Hollywood portrays the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings. 

    • Like 4
    • Heart 1
  13. Most Attended Pixar Movies:

    1. Elemental: 5.03m
    2. Inside Out: 4.96m
    3. Coco: 3.51m
    4. Toy Story 4: 3.40m
    5. Incredibles 2: 3.03m
    6. Finding Dory: 2.60m
    7. Soul: 2.04m
    8. Toy Story 3: 1.48m
    9. Good Dinosaur: 1.33m
    10. Wall-E: 1.32m
    11. Finding Nemo: 1.28m
    12. Brave: 1.23m
    13. Incredibles: 1.15m
    14. Up: 1.04m
    15. Ratatouille: 1.02m
    16. Monster's University: 0.87m
    17. Car: 0.66m
    18. Car 3: 0.48m
    19. Car 2: 0.46m
    20. Onward: 0.41m
    21. Luca: 0.37m
    22. Buzz Lightyear: 0.34m

    Didn't include the pre-2003 releases because nationwide admission numbers are not available

    I wonder how well Soul would have done if it wasn't released during COVID

    • Like 6
  14. So I just watched Smugglers via a preview event - I think it's going to do the best of the 4 big Korean blockbusters of the summer because it's a feel-good movie with the cathartic ending. I also think it might appeal to females because IMO it's the first female-led Korean blockbuster. 

    • Like 1
  15. 1 hour ago, imbruglia said:

    Barbie wasn't going to do big numbers in here anyway. 

    Barbie brand is not a thing here and its (US) success was driven by US meme, Twitter, social media. 

     

    Also US Comedy films and its humor style seems unpopular here.

    I think the problem is that it is super hard to translate English humor into Korean unless you put a lot of work into the subtitles. For instance, the Deadpool series received much praise for its subtitles. If WB hired who they usually hire in Korea to do subtitles, then the subtitles are not going to be great.

  16. 2 hours ago, IronJimbo & Sheldon's Son said:

    8m would match Bohemian Rhapsody's 19x FSS multiplier which would be ridiculous. Maybe school holidays can help it though.

     

    Speaking of, does anyone know what movie has the best multiplier in Korea?

    I'm not sure what movie has the best multiplier, but IMO the most impressive example of a movie breaking out is a indie documentary called 'Old Partner'. Its opening day  was around 1,000 admissions but it ended with almost 3 million admissions. 

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  17. 6 hours ago, IronJimbo & Sheldon's Son said:

    Barbie does have admissions! 40,386 start, #1 for the day but at the cost of almost 2/3rds of its presales. Maybe CGV isn't showing it until Thursday? That would explain the big CGV ratio for the other holdovers since they lost screens at other chain(s).

    That's weird - I checked the CGV website and there are Barbie screenings on Wednesday.

    • Like 1
  18. 17 minutes ago, IronJimbo & Sheldon's Son said:

    https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/07/17/business/industry/CJ-CGV-Lotte-Cinema-Megabox/20230717165313345.html

     

    Interesting article about the rising ticket prices in SK turning away moviegoers, CGV having to sell its own stock to raise capital, and a general absence of mid-budget/mid-tier movies (1m+ tickets sold). Sounds very similar to the situation domestic as well, however the numbers are much worse when compared with 2019.

     

     

    With 2024 looking like a down year for Hollywood because of the strikes I wonder if Korean audiences will turn even more to local movies and other asian imports like China and Japan have recently post-covid.

     

    To provide some context, CJ CGV got screwed over financially because they invested in a Turkish cinema operator, Mars Entertainment Group in 2016. Mars itself is doing well, but CGV signed an agreement in which they agreed to deliver a guaranteed minimum return to financial investors in terms of Korean Won. Unfortunately, due to the decrease in the value of the Turkish lira, CJ CGV had to take a lot of debt to fulfill these obligations. These issues were only exacerbated by COVID.

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