The novel coronavirus, which has spread rapidly since the beginning of 2020, has spread rapidly and threatened the lives of countless people. The more people gather in a confined space, the easier it is to spread the virus, which made people stay in the house only.
The circumstances in which it became difficult to get out of the house benefited someone. A significant number of online-mediated activities are the beneficiaries. Online-based content, including online games, OTT services, online shopping malls, webtoons and web novels, faced an unprecedented boom. However, this also means that activities in areas that could not be maintained online alone caused damage that was difficult to recover. Not only the manufacturing industry, but also the service industry suffered great damage. In addition, among the areas affected were culture and arts, and especially in Korea, the areas of movies and musicals were severely damaged.
It was also a natural consequence in some way. This is because, as of the 2020s, there are not many culture and arts fields that achieve meaningful results based on offline. Since the 2000s, with the rapid contraction of the real market, it has been a long time since the foundation of music and cartoon activities has been moved online. In the music field, real albums are still sold centering on idol fandoms, but the sales ratio of offline stores is not high, and only concerts are the few areas in the music industry where purchases are made through offline.
As for movies, OTT services such as’Netflix’,’Wave’, and’Taving’, which began to take place in earnest from the mid-2010s, gradually increased the base of the movie field, but the proportion of theaters was not low until at least 2020. In particular, Korea is a country with a high percentage of’watching movies’ overwhelmingly overtaking other leisure activities in statistics such as the’National Leisure Activity Survey’ for a long time. Moreover, the ratio of the’secondary market’ including DVD, Blu-ray, and VOD is also low compared to other countries. Significant revenue generated by the film industry still came from the’theatre’. Until 2020.
Although the official indicators of the Korea Film Promotion Committee (hereinafter referred to as Youngjin Committee) have not been released, the damage suffered by Korean films is revealed in the KOBIS (Integrated Cinematographer Admissions System), which aggregates the movie box office situation at the national theater at the level of the Film Promotion Committee. Based on KOBIS, the total theater revenue in 2019 was about 1,931.3 billion won, and if limited to Korean movies, it was about 9707 billion. However, the theater revenue, which did not know the momentum to stop every year, immediately collapsed with the epidemic of Corona 19. The total theater revenue in 2020, compiled in KOBIS, is about 5103 billion won, and if limited to Korean movies, it is about 350.5 billion won. Compared to 2019, theater revenue in 2020 decreased by about 49.28%, and if calculated separately for Korean movies, it decreased by a whopping 63.89%. At a small level, half compared to 2019, and at most, 2/3 of the profits evaporated in a single year. The damage will increase further if you consider it only for individual movies.
Due to the corona 19 epidemic, people disappeared at the theater at one moment. Movies in unattended theaters continued to postpone the release time, and theaters where the films to be released had disappeared initially filled with an empty schedule mainly for independent films, but the prolonged situation of Corona-19 is again as a work that’shows clearly the box office’. Filled up the empty space. In the name of’Special Exhibition’, the reopening of previously released box office works, or the works that have become classics, are screened harder than before in the theater to gather audiences in some way.
But in the end, even this was not easy. Large multiplex chains are a field where one after another, movie theaters and businesses with relatively low profits are organized in the name of somehow reducing’fixed costs’. CJ CGV announced in October last year that it would stop operating at least 35 and as many as 40 theaters out of 119 directly managed stores nationwide. Subsequently, in November, Lotte Cinema announced plans to shut down the operations of about 20 branches, which have a large loss out of 100 directly managed stores nationwide.
Compared to this, the circumstances of theaters that have professionally screened independent or artistic films seem better than those of multiplex theaters that are closing at first glance. On the surface, only’KT&G Cinema Sangsang Madang’, located at the Hongik University entrance in Seoul, has been discontinued, and no theater has been closed yet. Even in January of this year, an art movie theater called’Leica Cinema’ opened in Yeonhui-dong, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul.
However, this is only a superficial situation. There is some support from the Film Promotion Committee and some local governments, so they barely maintain it. Independent films and art film theaters also suffered enormous damage as the audience declined due to the corona 19 epidemic. At the same time, the issue that rarely attracted audiences, except for some works using popular actors or popular materials, which had been gradually raised from before, was further maximized as it overlapped with Corona 19. In severe cases, there were moments where the total number of spectators watching an independent film did not reach 1,000. The support from government agencies is the’last shield’ that prevents the suspension of operations, but the shield is by no means limitless. Unless the situation suddenly improves, the fatigue of running a theater that is rarely visited by audiences may suddenly strike those who run the theater.
However, in the case of movies, it is difficult to release due to Corona 19, and even if the release is enforced, the stage is gradually shifting to OTT including Netflix, but it is not possible to do so. No matter how much cooperation between the theater and OTT, it is essentially a space that has conflicting characteristics of online and offline. The relationship between the theater and OTT, which had been gradually exposed to conflict before, has rapidly widened amid the severe blow of outdoor activities caused by the Corona 19 epidemic.
In this situation, multiplex theaters are trying to get rid of the so-called’no money’ point, and at the same time setting up a strategy to somehow create users in cinemas that audiences do not visit. Movie theaters, which were relatively passive to’live content’, are actively developing related content to capture’fandom’ that reveals their loyalty with a relatively high purchase rate. In addition to the trend of trot programs such as’Songga in the Drama’, which was released on February 11, and the recent’Mistrot’, as well as the YouTube program’Fake Man,’ which has raised many questions in the case of CGV Art House. 2’movie version’Toy Soldiers: The Fake Man 2 Complete’ was finally released on January 27th.
At the same time, multiplex theaters are eager to create users by offering services that can be used by more and more people besides movie audiences at low prices. CGV’s’AzitX’, which has been renewed since last January, is representative. ‘Azit X’is a service that allows up to 4 players to enjoy console games such as Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5 on the large screen of a movie theater at a price of 100,000 won per session. Although the amount of use is very cheap compared to the expected revenue generated by the sold-out seats, it reveals the situation of a multiplex theater that is desperate for even a penny. Following CGV, Megabox also started a similar service under the name’Game View’. (However, Megabox has not received additional services after February 10.) Multiplex theaters have neither movies nor audiences. In the disappeared situation, various numbers are being sought to create new users.
Even the KT&G Cinema Sangsangmadang, which caused controversy by sending people who were in charge of the movie business, including movie theaters, to work that had nothing to do with the movie, without sufficient prior discussion procedures, revealed a similar insider. In the operating contest posted on the homepage on February 8th, the concept was changed from’independent films, audience screening centered’ to’movie community-centered, mandatory screening standards for independent films and artistic films’. As the expected effect of the company, we indicated’increased seat share’. On the surface, it is a’film community’, but it is not an exaggeration to say that the real focus is on’increasing audience’.
In this situation, it is only one thing that government agencies related to the film sector are also in a mixed situation. Young Jin-wi, who is directly in charge of policy in the film sector, held several urgent meetings with the prolonged corona 19 epidemic last year, and took a place to converge the policy, and made an urgent support system for film directors, distributors, and movie theaters. This does not go beyond the existing method of’subsidy payment-oriented policy’. Subsidies were still provided before, but due to the bias of the film ecosystem, the phenomenon that it was easy to be completely abandoned unless it was a mainstream-blockbuster film or a work that used timely attention-grabbing material was intensifying. In a crisis situation, a new policy was urgently created, but there seems to be no approach for fundamental structural change in the policy of Youngjin Committee.
However, even though Youngjin Committee’s policy is disappointing, it will be much better than the’Digital Media Ecosystem Development Plan’ jointly announced by the Korea Communications Commission (Korea Communications Commission), the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and the Ministry of Science and Technology Information and Communication in June of last year. The plan does not deviate from the anachronistic slogan such as “cultivation of at least five global OTT services by 2022,” and the mindset that if the government and large private capital make investments, the market will grow on its own. Of course, it does not contain any concerns about the poor diversity of species that have lurked inside the film or video ecosystem. Keynotes for this’policy plan’ include the’Broadcasting Market Revitalization Policy Plan’ announced by the Korea Communications Commission on January 13, and the’Internet Video Service and Content Development Conference’ held by the Ministry of Science and Technology Information and Communication on January 29. It has not changed at the event. The perception of who actually makes the movie or video and who sees it again is completely excluded.
In the meantime, while everyone is in vain, some of the filmmakers have already taken action to prepare for’the change that the corona will bring about’. A representative example is the OTT service’Purplay’ (purplay.co.kr), which started its service in 2017. ‘Perplay’ is basically a place that claims to be a’female film platform’, but at the same time, it is also an OTT platform that has provided a full-fledged service of’short independent films’, which have not been able to make a proper operating model for any online movie service. ‘Perplay’, which declared that the female directors and staff would specialize in the works made, paradoxically contributed to the professional treatment of independent films, especially short-sized independent films. There is no way to meet many independent short films without film festivals, and again, many of the short films are mainly made by students attending the theater and film department. And, according to the ‘2018 Korean Film Industry Settlement’ of the Korea Film Promotion Commission, the proportion of women among the national theater and film department enrolled students is 7.9%, but only 7.9% of the commercial films released by female directors.
These indicators reveal that, compared to the size of the Korean film industry, which has grown rapidly, the flow of recognizing, enjoying, and considering anything other than mainstream works is very lacking. ‘Perplay’ itself was not a place specially prepared for Corona 19, nor was it operated with the support of Youngjin Committee. (It’s just that Seoul City’s youth project investment business has only been received.) However,’Perplay’, which has become an unrivaled OTT that specializes in providing independent short films with such a side effect, focused on women’s films, shines with the epidemic of Corona 19. Struck. Small film festivals such as’Korea Queer Film Festival’ and’Kara Animal Film Festival’ have launched online film festivals through perplay. For a while, the importance of’perplay’ is expected to increase even further as theater districts are rapidly contracting and movie viewing online is expected to expand further.
The movement of’Community Cinema’, which declared that it will become a small theater in the form of symbiosis with the local community, such as the Corner Theater located in Busan and the Cinema Lounge MM located in Mokpo is also accelerating. ‘Community Cinemas’ located all over the country opened a movie content store in various places across the country including Euljiro Sewoon Shopping Center in December of last year. The’Cooperative’ has been approved by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. Although offline spaces are generally shrinking, community cinemas located in Japan, the United States, Germany, and other parts of the world are based on the characteristics of’operating based on local communities’, and even in crisis situations, Corona 19 It continues to operate even in a fashion situation.
These features are more than simply increasing the subsidy, aren’t they a fundamental movement to draw the image of a’post-corona movie theater’ beyond slogans such as’promoting global OTT services’. Even if the coronavirus disappears, the movement to watch movies through online services including OTT will not stop easily for a while. At the same time, multiplexes are more likely to actively close theaters with low so-called’profitability’ (profitable income and expenditures) to keep their profits as much as possible. Paradoxically, this movement will stop the multiplex’s rivalry, but it is highly likely to have a big blow to the’neighborhood theater’ except for some downtown areas. Even if it is small in absolute size, the moment when we have to think about community cinema operated based on the region is gradually coming.
The policies of government agencies and the flow of the whole board should never neglect the flow of this structure. Obviously, the Korean film industry grew at an unpredictable rate, but there was also a dark side that neglected the health and diversity of the film enjoyment and production ecosystem as a reason for market expansion. However, just as the Korean economy, which had been growing with’Temple Buddha’ and’Quickly,’ collapsed rapidly along with the IMF economic crisis, the Korean film industry, which grew in a similar way, is also facing a similar crisis. Will you continue to be bound by the structure of the past while talking about innovation? Will you find a really necessary alternative? If you truly think about the’new look’, the way you think about it will have to change.
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