Korean cinema is facing its steepest downturn in two decades, with nationwide admissions plunging to just 40.7 million in the first half of 2025, down from 62.9 million a year earlier and on track to fall below the symbolic annual 100 million mark for the first time since 2004, excluding the pandemic years. A dearth of domestic blockbusters, rising competition from streaming platforms and consumer belt-tightening are drivers of the slump, which threatens to upend one of Asia’s most dynamic theatrical markets. The industry is currently confronting an existential threat to its once-thriving theatrical culture.
“I think that it’s not so much the crisis of cinema. It’s a crisis of the movie theaters,” Park tells Variety at the Busan International Film Festival, where his latest thriller “No Other Choice” was the opening film. “But I also think, in turn, the crisis of the movie theaters is actually,…
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