[비즈니스포스트] The film ‘Crime City’ meets audiences with its fourth series.
The series Crime City ends with episode 8. This work marks a turning point, and it is said that the success or failure of the remaining series will be judged by the success of the yes Crime City 4.
On the 23rd, a day before the release of Crime City 4, there are several opinions in the content industry as to whether Crime City 4 will be able to cross 10 million viewers again.
Crime City 4 recorded a real-time booking rate of 93.1% at 2pm on the 23rd. The booking rate, which was 92.5% at 9am, rose 0.6 percentage points to over 93%.
This is the first time a Korean movie has had a real-time booking rate of over 90%. The previous record was 87.3% set by Crime City 3.
Even including overseas films, it has been 2 years and 5 months since ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’, released in December 2021, has surpassed the real-time booking rate 90%
Crime City 4 has already crossed 600,000 viewers through advance bookings alone. It is likely that the break-even point will be easily exceeded. The break-even point for Crime City 4 is 3.5 million viewers.
More attention is paid to whether the audience can exceed 10 million viewers than whether it breaks even.
If Crime City 4 crosses 10 million viewers, three films in a Korean film series will be registered as ’10 Million Movies’ for the first time. Crime City 2 recorded a cumulative audience of 12.69 million, and Crime City 3 recorded a cumulative audience of 10.68 million.
Because of the Crime City name value, there are many speculations that the 4th series will also have more than 10 million viewers. However, there are cautious predictions that attracting 10 million viewers this time around will not be easy.
The disadvantage of Crime City 4 compared to previous series is the timing of its release. Crime City 4 is the first in the series which was released in April. Crime City 1 was released in October, and Crime City 2 and Crime City 3 were released in May.
April is the off-season for theaters. When calculating the number of monthly listeners, April is the bottom month every year. There are even years when it is at its lowest. Many studies say that fewer audiences visit theaters in April because many people go on spring outings.
An official from the content industry said, “As can be seen from the fact that the movie Spring of Seoul was released in November, which is the off-season, and the cumulative number of viewers more higher than 10 million, it is increasingly difficult. predict if it will be a box office after COVID-19,” and “Crime City. “4 will be released in April, which is the off-season, but we will only know if it is a box office when we hit open the roof.”
It seems that the reason Crime City 4 chose to be released in April, which is the off-season for theaters, is because they are so confident.
Crime City 2 and Crime City 3 held paid previews in advance. In fact, it is the same as moving up the release date. However, Crime City 4 did not hold paid previews in advance. Only private previews were held for companies with more than 100 people.
Since no pre-paid screening was held, it can be interpreted as confidence in the success of Crime City 4.
Another variable is that, as the Crime City series reaches its third installment, audience ratings are gradually decreasing.
According to Watchapedia star rating, Crime City 1 registered 4.0, Crime City 2 registered 3.5, and Crime City 3 registered 3.0. As time goes on, the star rating becomes lower.
The same goes for Naver ratings. Naver’s rating was 9.28 for Crime City 1, 8.98 for Crime City 2, and 7.67 for Crime City 3. The rating, which was around 9 points in Crime City 1, dropped to a mid-7 points in Crime City 3.
That is why it is expected that if the audience evaluation of Crime City 4 worsens, the box office success of the remaining series will also suffer.
An official in the content industry said, “There are 5 episodes left in the Crime City series, including this one, but it is true that the ratings and audience strength seem to be a bit lower than in Crime City 1 It’s a work, whether it reaches the 10 million mark or not depends on how the audience perceives the performance of Detective Ma Seok -do,” he said. Narrator In-seon Yoon
