Lunar New Year Box Office; Korea's Current Malaise & Upcoming Films
Streamlined has only been offline for one month, but in that time, it's become clear that we're having a challenging start to the year: war and politics are casting a shadow over the on-going Berlin film festival; global streamers are continuing their great local-language contraction, with Amazon Prime Video scaling back production in Asia, Middle East and Africa (while Netflix adds insult to injury by announcing a slew of local-language slates); US studios continue to shed employees as rumours swirl about further consolidation; one of the big proposed Indian media mergers has fallen apart; and exhibitors across the planet, following years of pandemic and Hollywood strikes disruption, are staring at release schedules that look disturbingly bare.
Here in Asia, territories celebrating the Lunar New Year holidays actually had something to cheer with a seasonal uplift in box office, which was never a sure thing given the strained economies and lack of consumer confidence in the region. But the lack of big studio releases in coming months is causing concern. Dune: Part Two will be welcomed, especially in Seoul where Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya are rumoured to be visiting, but there are no big four quadrant family films until Universal's Kung Fu Panda 4 and Warner Bros/Toho's Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire in April. March could be a good month for Oscar hopefuls with Past Lives finally getting an outing in Korea and Anatomy Of A Fall opening in China.
This edition of Streamlined will look at the Lunar New Year box office results across China, Korea and Vietnam; then dig into what is happening in Korea - the one Asian territory where box office recovering is really lagging - as well as touch on what Korean films are upcoming. Next editions will look at what's coming in Japan, India and Southeast Asia.
