Today's global box office is genuinely astonishing. The film that has drawn the biggest crowds worldwide this year is, without question, "Spider-Man: Brand New Day." According to Box Office Mojo, "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" had earned $2.046 billion worldwide as of the 21st, leading this year's box office. That is about 2.8 trillion won in Korean currency.
Let's compare that with the Korean market. This year's top film at the Korean box office is "The Man Who Lives With the King," which earned 163.2 billion won. It drew 16.91 million admissions, the second-highest of all time behind "Roaring Currents," which recorded 17.61 million. In box-office revenue, though, it surpassed the 135.7 billion won earned by "Roaring Currents," a result that reflects higher ticket prices.
Back to "Spider-Man." Barring an upset, the film looks set to lock up the top spot in this year's global box office. The remaining question is whether it can go beyond this year's No. 1 and challenge the all-time record.
The current all-time worldwide box-office leader is "Avatar," at $2.92371 billion, followed by "Avengers: Endgame" at $2.79944 billion. "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" trails them by roughly $900 million and $750 million, respectively. The gap is still considerable, but the film is piling up revenue so quickly that even a run at the all-time record is being discussed.
This year's global top five also make for an interesting read. Second is director Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey," which passed $1.3 billion ($1.30567 billion); third is "Toy Story 5" ($1.11638 billion); fourth is "Michael," a film about the life of Michael Jackson ($1.01607 billion); and fifth is "Super Mario Galaxy: The Movie" ($1.01254 billion). All crossed the $1 billion mark.
Look closely at these films and one thing they share stands out. There are intellectual properties (IP) that already command global fandoms, like Spider-Man, Toy Story and Mario, and there are figures everyone knows, like "Michael." "The Odyssey," too, pairs a classic tale long beloved in the West with the name Christopher Nolan. In other words, global audiences chose the synergy created when a familiar experience meets a popular IP.
So what about Korea? The formula for a hit in Korean theaters was a little different.
The strongest performer at the domestic box office this year was not one of the Hollywood blockbusters in the global top five, but the Korean film "The Man Who Lives With the King." It is a significant film both as a demonstration of Korean cinema's strength and as a sign that Korean audiences responded powerfully to a Korean film once again. Global audiences chose "Spider-Man," but Korea chose "The Man Who Lives With the King."
Of course, this does not mean Korean audiences turned away from Hollywood films. "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" and other global hits are performing well here, too. But when we talk about the recovery of domestic theaters this year, the first film that comes to mind is still "The Man Who Lives With the King."
Here we find another intriguing difference. The "familiarity" that works in the global market comes from IP known around the world, like Spider-Man, Toy Story or Mario. The "familiarity" that drew Korean audiences into theaters, by contrast, came from Korean history and sentiment, and from a story we know well. In the end audiences want something similar, but what counts as familiar is different.
Yet it falls short to explain the success of "The Man Who Lives With the King" simply through the power of a familiar historical tale. In the film, the young Danjong loses his parents at an early age and, despite being one of the most legitimate heirs among Joseon's kings, is driven from the throne by his uncle, Grand Prince Suyang, before meeting a wretched end. Seen as a personal story, it is a sad one; from a social perspective, it is also a history in which one person's life and rightful claims were trampled by unjust power.
Audiences empathized with this tragedy and injustice, and shared that feeling together in theaters. Nearly 17 million viewers answered the call of this story.
This is precisely the vantage point from which I think we need to view this year's theatrical recovery.
With the arrival of the online streaming (OTT) era, the standards by which audiences decide to go to theaters have also changed. People no longer head to a theater simply because a film is "worth watching." They can enjoy content on a large screen at home and watch a film whenever they want.
So to go to a theater, people need a clear reason that "this has to be seen in a theater" — whether scale, resonance or experience. This summer's box office, in particular, showed the strongest recovery since the COVID-19 pandemic. It is meaningful in that audiences have begun seeking out "the theater experience" again.
Audiences who rediscovered the pleasure of theaters also headed to premium formats. Major premium screens such as SCREENX, 4DX and IMAX for "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" and "The Odyssey" posted high seat-occupancy rates and drove repeat viewings.
The optimal viewing format each film touted was also different. "Spider-Man" was designed with SCREENX screenings in mind from the planning and production stages, while news that "The Odyssey" was shot in its entirety — all 172 minutes — on IMAX 70mm film cameras heightened audiences' curiosity.
In the end, this year's theatrical recovery seems to mean more than simply that there were more hit films. More important, it appears, is that audiences have once again begun to distinguish between "film" and "theater."
Films can be watched on OTT services too, but the experience of watching a film in a theater cannot be replaced. It includes not only the enormous screen, overwhelming sound and premium-format technology, but also the experience of hundreds of viewers laughing, gasping and holding their breath together in one space.
When you watch a film alone at home, you hear only your own laughter; in a theater, the laughter of the person next to you sparks more laughter. At the decisive moment, the entire audience holds its breath, and after the film ends, strangers can talk to one another about the same scene.
Perhaps this is the most powerful reason theaters can survive in the OTT era.
Globally, "Spider-Man" has passed $2 billion and is eyeing the all-time box-office record; in Korea, "The Man Who Lives With the King" drew nearly 17 million viewers into theaters. The hit films in the two markets are entirely different, but there is something in common at the core of what moved audiences.
They created the feeling that "this film has to be seen in a theater."
In the end, the future of theaters may depend not on how many films they can wrest away from OTT services, but on how powerfully they can show the value of a film that can only be felt in a theater.
Watching theaters slowly come back to life this year, I find myself thinking something I haven't in a while.
"The best way to watch a movie is to go to the theater."
Yeon Seung's Entertainment Talk
Each week, this column picks out the hottest issues and talked-about content from the entertainment industry. From the latest news on actors and K-pop artists to hit films, dramas, streaming (OTT) titles and K-pop trends, it unpacks entertainment stories too good to pass by in an easy and engaging way.
