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| Lee Byung-hun, right, and Lee Hee-jun in a scene from "The Man Standing Next" / Courtesy of Showbox |
Cinemas announce preventative measures to avoid coronavirus
By Kwak Yeon-soo
Movie theaters suffered during the Lunar New Year holiday as ticket sales dropped year-on-year amid a nationwide fear of the Wuhan coronavirus.
The Lunar New Year holiday is traditionally one of the high seasons for cinemas here. Last year, the local box office totaled 72.1 billion won ($61 million) during the five-day holiday, attracting more than 8 million moviegoers from Feb. 2 to 6.
But this year, with the shorter holiday period and the outbreak of the deadly virus, the box office grossed only about 44.4 billion won ($37.7 million), according to the Korean Film Council (KOFIC). Multiplexes attracted only about 4.9 million moviegoers from Jan. 24 to 27.
"The coronavirus outbreak may have brought about the decline in ticket reservations and sales during the Lunar New Year holiday," a KOFIC official said. "However, a bigger reason for the lower attendance compared with last year is that there were no family movies that could be enjoyed by people of all ages."
Despite subdued cinema admissions numbers, the political thriller "The Man Standing Next" came out victorious at the box office, selling more than 2.6 million tickets during the holiday.
The accumulated attendance for the film has reached 3,226,090 since its Jan. 22 release, according to the data from KOFIC, Tuesday.
Based on the best-selling book of the same name, "The Man Standing Next" tells the hidden story of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) and its political maneuvering in the 1970s. It depicts the intense feud between former and then-incumbent spy chiefs in 1979 before one of them assassinated President Park Chung-hee.
The film was followed by "Hitman: Agent Jun" which attracted 1.2 million moviegoers during the holiday, and has 1,474,767 viewers so far, according to box-office data.
"Hitman" is an action-comedy film that revolves around a spy-turned-webtoon artist.
Struggling to create a hit webtoon, Jun, played by Kwon Sang-woo, whose stories containing confidential information of his former employer, the National Intelligence Service (NIS), are accidentally posted on his website.
As the stories go viral, he becomes the target of the NIS and a group of terrorists.
The third most-watched movie during the Lunar New Year holiday was "Mr. Zoo: The Missing VIP," a comedy starring Lee Sung-min.
In the film, Tae-joo, a spy with the ability to communicate with animals, tries to find the missing VIP, a Chinese panda, with the help of a military dog.
In an attempt to increase ticket sales and encourage moviegoers to return to the theaters, major multiplexes have announced "preventative" measures against the Wuhan coronavirus such as providing hand sanitizers and thermometers at theaters.
"To avoid being exposed to coronavirus, we have advised our employees to carry around hand sanitizers and wear disposable masks," a CGV official said.
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