[KOREA] American films do well in Korea causing concern for Korean film critics

July 26, 2007 by Dennis Amith

Chosun recently featured an article of the success of US films “Spider-Man 3″, “Harry Potter”, “Transformers” and “Die Hard” but several film critics in Korea are concerned.

According to the article, “The success of American movies in Korea is a big concern for Chungmuro, Korea’s Hollywood, but more distressing is the diminishing number of moviegoers in general. Last week’s figure of 2.07 million was down by 603,000 from the previous week, and most people went to just two movies. Bruce Willis’ return as an action hero made it to the top, pulling in 859,300 moviegoers nationwide over the weekend, but it was no way near the éclat of the boy-wizard who rounded up 1.4 million fans last week. According to a recent report from CJ CGV, the total number of moviegoers for the first half of this year was 72 million, down by 10.8 percent from the year before.”

“That’s a big drop after a nearly 10-year upward trend that began in 1998. “Movie fans’ habits are changing rapidly with many of them watching films on portable devices or on cable TV,” said movie critic Lee Sang-yong. “There’s a diminishing need to actually go to a theater unless it’s to watch a visually stimulating movie.”