Billions spent on film boost wasted

The government recently distributed 4.5 million vouchers offering a 6,000 won discount on movie tickets, citing the need to “stimulate domestic demand, restore livelihoods, and revitalize the film industry.” Demand was so strong that multiplex websites briefly crashed. Of these, 2.62 million vouchers, or 58.2 percent, were used, while 1.88 million went unused and will be reissued on Sept. 8. How many additional moviegoers did the vouchers bring in? The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said that during the first distribution period, from July 25 to Sept. 2, theaters drew an average of about 435,000 visitors a day, roughly 1.8 times this year’s prior daily average.

Yet the voucher period overlapped with the traditional peak season of the summer school break. Comparisons with typically slow months such as March and April cannot fairly measure the effect. At minimum, the same period across the past five years should be examined, though the pandemic years complicate the data. Compared with the same period last year, attendance rose about 14 percent. Bluntly put, out of every 114 viewers, 100 would likely have gone to theaters anyway, and only 14 were new.

Will those 14 keep going to the movies once the vouchers are gone, as the government hopes? Perhaps, but much of the surge reflects the feeling that “it is a loss not to use the discount.” Such viewers are unlikely to return once the vouchers run out.

With funding scarce in the film sector and audiences complaining that “there is nothing worth watching in theaters,” was it right to pour the budget into ticket subsidies? Fewer than 20 films with production costs above 3 billion won are being made in Korea this year. The vouchers cost 27.1 billion won from the supplementary budget. That same amount could have launched nine new projects with 3 billion won budgets. If a government fund had covered half and private capital the rest, as is often done, as many as 18 films might have gone into production, nearly doubling output.

Nor were the subsidies limited to Korean films. While the zombie comedy “My Daughter Is a Zombie” benefited most, the next biggest winner was Hollywood’s “F1 The Movie.”

Culture Minister Chae Hwi-young, who took office after the vouchers were issued, was asked by reporters on Sept. 4 whether this was a waste of funds. “The film industry is in need of resuscitation,” he said. “This is not the time to quibble over conditions.” He also acknowledged, “It is fair to ask whether putting that money there, at that time, truly helps the domestic film industry.” He added, “Fundamentally, theaters must change to create experiences that only theaters can provide.”

The ministry has finalized next year’s film budget at 149.8 billion won, up 66.9 billion won, or 80.8 percent, from this year. The plan includes 20 billion won to support mid-budget film production, 10 billion more than this year.

A pump primer removes air inside the pump to maintain pressure, solving a structural problem. By contrast, handing out vouchers does not address the underlying issues facing theaters, such as resistance to sharp ticket price hikes and the migration of viewers to streaming platforms. Industry figures say, “You cannot keep issuing coupons forever.” What is urgently needed is structural reform, not scattering cash into the air, and that point applies beyond movie ticket discounts.