Behind the HeadlinesThe Report
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 16 FEBRUA RY 12, 2020
QUINN: DAVE BENETT/GETTY IMAGES.10.tweeting that Bong’s social satire
“moved the minds of the world
with a story that is truly Korean.”
Oh Seok-geun, chairman of the
government-run Korea Film
Council, says the night proved
that “the U.S. market is no longer
a challenging or distant market
for Korean movies.” Parasite’s
success, he said, opens the
possibility for any filmmaker,
anywhere, that “if you make a
great movie, many around the
world will watch it.” Lewis Kim, a
producer on Bong’s earlier films
including The Host and Okja, says
he hopes the wins will inspire
Korean directors and writers “to
have a bigger dream.”
Audiences have certainly
embraced Parasite as it
unspooled globally since debut-
ing in Korea on May 30. Made
for about $11 million by Korean
studios Barunson E&A and
CJ Entertainment, it has grossed
some $170 mil-
lion worldwide, a
figure certain to
surge in the wake
of Bong’s Oscar
haul. Its domestic
performance of $35 million and
counting for To m Q u i n n’s i nd ie
Neon (founded in 2017), which
picked up the film in October
2018, makes it the most suc-
cessful Korean film of all time
in the U.S. (Its domestic theater
count will be upped to as many as
2,000 locations for the Feb. 14-
weekend.) “The Neon team
worked their asses off to get here,
all in the service of this amaz-
ing movie,” Quinn told THR on
Oscar night.
Parasite has smashed records
for a Korean movie in territories
as varied as France ($11.9 mil-
lion), Mexico ($3.9 million) and
Russia ($1.5 million). In the U.K.,
Curzon opened the film wide on
Feb. 7, timing the bow to take
advantage of the Oscar bump. It
worked. Parasite grossed more
than $1.3 million in its first two
days in the territory, a record for a
non-English-language movie. “It’s
a game-changer,” says Charles
Cohen, whose Cohen Media Group
owns Curzon and the Landmark
chain in the U.S. “I think it’s
a great vote of confidence for
world cinema.”
In Germany, Parasite hasn’t left
theaters since its October bow
there, earning $3.8 million to
date. “We knew it had potential,
but no one expected this,” says
Moritz Peters of indie distribu-
tor Koch Films, which prebought
the movie two years ago based
on Bong’s script alone. Koch is
expanding the film’s release to
capitalize on the Oscars, more
than doubling the screen count
(to 250-plus).
Parasite isn’t the first Asian
film to strike global box office
gold, but it’s been nearly 20 years
since Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon conquered the
world, winning four Oscars in
2001 (though not best picture)
and earning $213 million. Zhang
Yimou’s Hero, which was snubbed
by the Academy but grossed$177 million worldwide, followed
in 2002. Unlike those, or Zhang’s
2004 follow-up House of Flying
Daggers (one Oscar nom, $92 mil-
lion global take), Parasite is not a
wuxia action film, all high-wire
sword-fighting and escapist
period drama. Bong’s satire is
set very much in the real world,
and its themes of social exclusion
and the gap between rich and
poor could have been torn from
today’s headlines.
Peters believes Bong’s film built
on the critical momentum of such
recent socially aware art house
titles as Lee Chang-dong’s Burning
and Hirokazu Koreeda’s Japa nese
drama Shoplifters (like Parasite, a
Cannes Palme d’Or winner).
If Parasite can convince audi-
ences to jump the subtitles
barrier, it will be due, in no small
part, to Netflix, the studio some
viewed as a loser on Oscar night
with just two wins from 24 nomi-
nations. The streaming giant,
which backed Bong’s previous
action-adventure drama Okja,
was the first U.S. major to fully
embrace international content.
Netflix has been plowing money
into foreign-language films and
series for years, offering to its
167 million worldwide subscribers
the chance to stream Mati Diop’s
Senegalese drama Atlantics,
Nora Fingscheidt’s G er ma n
art house hit System Crasher or
Jung Ji-woo’s Korea n mu sic a l
rom-com Tune in for Love.
“Netflix created this new global
market for non-English language
content,” says Florian Gellinger, a
European visual effects producerand Academy member whose
credits include Avengers: Endgame
and the Netflix series Dark.
“There’s a demand, a global mar-
ket, for non-English-language
content that just wasn’t there five
to 10 years ago.”
Even before Parasite’s wins,
dealmakers at Sundance were
feeling the film’s impact on
acquisitions. “With the success of
Parasite, I am hopeful distributors
— both traditional and streamers
— will be willing to take a chance
on international films,” says
ICM’s Jessica Lacy. “Steamers are
increasingly looking at things on
a global basis.” As other studios
begin to roll out their own global
streaming platforms, Gellinger
expects them to follow Netflix’s
lead and add more subtitled con-
tent. “The Oscar wins for Parasite
will be taken as a very welcome
signal that the public will accept
non-English programming,”
he says.
Miyuki Takamatsu of Japanese
film sales group Freestone
Productions calls Parasite’s w i n
a “revolutionary moment for
film people in Asia.” But she’s
not yet convinced its success can
be easily replicated: “We film
people have always known we
are borderless and that a good
film is a good film,” she says.
“But to see this recognized at
the Academy Awards, in front
of the entire world, it’s a very
powerful moment.”Patrick Brzeski, Alex Ritman,
Tatiana Siegel and Rebecca Sun
contributed to this report.40M30M20M9121510M62010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Source: NielsenOscars Ouch! TV Ratings Hit All-Time Low
41.7M13.37.9M11.39.3M11.
40.4M1343.7M13.37.3M1134.4M32.9M9.26.5M6.29.6M7.23.6M5.TOTAL VIEWERS 18-49 RATING 2020
Total viewers
↓20%
year-over-year
Key demo (18-49)
↓30%
year-over-yearOscar Wins by Studio
Neon 4
Disney 4
20th Century 2
Searchlight 1
Pixar 1
Sony 4
Universal 3
Netflix 2
Warner Bros. 2
Roadside Attractions/LD Entertainment 1
Lionsgate 1
Paramount 1
A+E Networks 1
Marshall Curry Productions 1Quinn