[HanCinema's News] "Exhuma" Dominates First Quarter Report for Main Three South Korean Theatrical Distributors

CJ CGV, Lotte Cinema, and Megabox all saw a boost to their earnings in the first quarter, buoyed by the record-setting performance of "Exhuma" in local theaters. The overall financial picture for the companies differs to some extent, however, due to differences in operations. CJ CGV and Lotte Cinema were better positioned to benefit from "Exhuma" thanks to their overseas operation, such as in Vietnam, where the occult thriller is now the best performing South Korean film of all time.

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Megabox and Lotte Cinema also saw cost-cutting measures as contributing to their improved financial outlook, with Megabox in particular laying off two hundred employees. The benefits to scale were also relatively small, with CJ CGV seeing only a .2% overall increase in sales. Overall, CGV had around three hundred million dollars of sales but only three million dollars of profits. "Exhuma" alone likely prevented an outright loss for these companies, and even then mainly thanks to concessions.

Lotte Shopping, for their part, reported eighty million dollars in sales, an increase of 2.6%, with profits of only eight hundred thousand dollars. However, they had an operating loss of eight million dollars for the first quarter of the previous year. Even their domestic operations contracted by .2%, with the shortfall being more than compensated for by a 21.3% boost in the Vietnamese market.

Megabox saw a 6.1% increase of sales to an overall figure of fifty million dollars, with profits of one million dollars. This compares to a loss of eight million dollars the previous year. Special screenings for CGV and Lotte Cinema have not done well. Operations remain dependent on major films on "12.12: The Day" and "The Roundup: Punishment" before and after the period which "Exhuma" dominated, though all three companies remain commited to special formats like 4DX.

Written by William Schwartz