hankyoreh

By Hong Seok-jae, cinema correspondent

Bigbox theatre Megabox is involved in a dispute over its decision to drastically reduce the number of first-run theaters for ‘Another Family’, a film that was released on Feb 6. The film is about the death of a Samsung semiconductor factory worker. Its distributor, All, said on Jan 4, “Megabox has reduced the number of screens from 15 to 3 just two days before the release. There is enough demand among viewers for the film, so this is nonsense.”

On Feb. 5, after a Korean language Hankyoreh report, Megabox increased the number of screens to 22.

‘Another Family’ has drawn great attention for confronting the dark side of a large corporation through the true story of Hwang Yu-mi, who died of leukemia after three years of working at a Samsung semiconductor factory in Giheung, Gyeonggi Province. Interest in the film grew via word of mouth, as veteran actors like Park Chul-min, Yoon Yu-sun and others star in the film. It was the most widely viewed new release on the week of Feb. 4, when the Hollywood movie ‘Frankenstein’ also came out.

‘Another Family’ placed third overall, following Disney‘s Frozen and CJ’s Miss Granny, and its ticket sales showed an upward momentum. It is uncommon for a film like ‘Another Family’ to have its number of screens reduced, as it was sure to find mid to high-level success at the box office.

The number of Megabox screens showing the film is far fewer than by CGV, which is showing ‘Another Family’ at 45 theaters. Lotte Cinema, another bigbox theater company, increased the number of screens showing ‘Another Family’ from seven to 19.

Megabox reportedly planned to show the film in 30 different theaters and opened online reservations for 15 of those. But suddenly on Feb. 4, 12 of those screenings were canceled. Megabox didn‘t even report the exact number of theaters available to the distributor before the release date. A few Megabox theaters are offering refunds to ticket holders.

Last year, Megabox caused a similar controversy when it pulled the film ‘Project Cheonan Ship’ from screens for uncertain reasons. The film was about the 2010 sinking of the Cheonan warship and was among the most successful independent films at the box office.

Since the half of all Megabox shares are owned by JoongAng Ilbo president Hong Suk-hyun, who is also affiliated with the Samsung family, some netizens allege that the sudden close down could have caused by outside pressure. This is because it is hard to believe that the person in charge of scheduling films decided to stop showing ‘Another Family’ when it was third in ticket sales.

Once the doubts spread via online news, Megabox explained itself in the evening of Feb. 4 by saying, “It is true that we reduced the number of theaters all the way down to 3, but re-opened a few more and have come to 11 in total after considering regional distributions and more.”

Distributor All’s president Kim Yoon-mi said, “The film had a lot of difficulties from the beginning of the production and was funded only by private investors because it tells the story of a large corporation. It is hard to accept Samsung-related Megabox reducing the number of theaters for no specific reason. We hope the film will be shown at all theaters, as viewer demand has already been demonstrated through ticket sales.”

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]