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S. Korean box-office plunges in February

March 9, 2015
(Newsis)

(Newsis)

SEOUL, March 9 (Yonhap) — South Korea’s cinema ticket revenues and the number of moviegoers fell drastically in February from a year ago, although it had the five-day Lunar New Year holiday, a market tracker said Monday.

Ticket revenue in the domestic movie market fell by 5.3 percent to 131.5 billion won (US$11.84 million) last month while attendance in theaters dropped by 10.2 percent to 16.67 million people, the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) said in a monthly box-office report.

This year’s Lunar New Year’s holiday was from Feb. 18-22, which was longer than last year’s four days. But only 5.95 million people visited theaters to watch movies, less than last year’s 6.28 million, due to a lack of box-office successes.

About 51.7 percent of the people who visited theaters last month saw foreign films, compared with the 48.3 percent for Korean films.

Korean films drew 8.05 million viewers, earning 63.4 billion won while the corresponding figures for foreign films were 8.62 million people and 68.1 billion won.