Korean police allege box office manipulation of over 300 movies

South Korean police claimed to have found evidence that over the past five years, box office performance for 323 films has been falsely inflated.

As a result, on Wednesday (16 August), Seoul’s Metropolitan Police said they had referred 69 individuals from major exhibition chains, along with 24 film distribution companies, to prosecutors, Variety reports. Prosecutors will then decide whether or not to pursue criminal charges.

The police force’s anti-corruption and public crime investigation division began investigating earlier this year, and in June, they raided the country’s three largest film distributors: CJ-CGV, Megabox and Lotte Cinema.

It had also been reported at the time that other operators, including Showbox, Lotte Entertainment and Kidari, had also been searched. In total, investigators have reportedly probed a total of 98 film distributors and 462 locally released movie titles.

“In collusion with film distributors, the accused theatre officials allegedly entered inflated ticket sales information onto the Korean Film Council’s box office compiling service [Kobis] from March 2018 to June this year to boost the box office rankings of the movies released at their theatres,” police stated, according to local news agency Yonhap.

“The accused falsely reported tickets at certain show times were sold out and, as a result of the alleged rigging, a total of 2.67 million viewers were overcounted.”

The Independent has contacted CJ-CGV, Megabox and Lotte Cinema for comment.

Among the 323 films that have been subjected to alleged viewership manipulation include well-known titles such as 2022 documentary The Red Herring, featuring former Justice Minister Cho Kuk, and 2021 action thriller Emergency Declaration.

The latter, which had its world premiere at the 74th annual Cannes Film Festival, stars Song Kang-ho (Parasite), Jeon Do-yeon and Lee Byung-hun (Squid Game).

However, after repeated delays by its distributor Showbox, the movie didn’t hit screens until more than a year later, in August 2022. It is reported to have sold 2.06 million tickets, and earned a gross revenue of $15.7m (£12.7m), according to data still available on Korean Film Council (KOFIC) site, KoBiz.

Overstated box office numbers can be a way for movies to appear more successful than they really are. This can, in turn, increase audience interest, leading film distributors to increase particular movie viewings in more cinemas – therefore, eventually turning forged success into legit success.

In the long run, rigged box office numbers can lead to higher fees for TV licenses, streaming and ancillary market performance.

A majority of these alleged ticket sales manipulations also occurred during Covid, when the cinema business was severely impacted, and KOFIC provided ancillary aid in the form of ticket vouchers.