I feel immense pride as a Korean film-maker that the audience wants more from this Korean story and our Korean characters. There's so much more to this world we have built and I'm excited to show you. This is only the beginning.
Admissions for Korean and international films have fallen 45% since 2019, from about 226 million to 123 million, while box office revenue has dropped from $1.3bn to $812m. With investment slowing sharply, Korean distributors that once released more than 40 locally produced films a year are expected to put out about only 20 in 2025, and warn that 2026 could be even more serious as the pandemic-era backlog runs out and new productions are not coming fast enough.