Long formats are having more and more difficulty attracting an audience accustomed to very short content, such as on TikTok. So, to bring them back to theaters, in South Korea we are now producing very short and inexpensive films.
Published on 04/11/2024 12:22
Reading time: 3min
In South Korea, the trend is towards shortening, a film of more than 100 minutes is considered too long. Illustrative photo. (JEREMIE FULLERINGER / MAXPPP)
In South Korea, to attract young people to cinemas, film producers are starting to test a new film format in theaters: very short, very effective and inexpensive. It’s the producers’ idea. In the industry, we even now talk about “snack films”. Basically, a film that you can finish at the same time as your pot of popcorn and your big soda, no more, no less.
For example, Lotte Entertainment, one of the country’s largest distributors, released a film lasting just 44 minutes in many major theaters on the first weekend of November. It is precisely called 4h44, Time of Fearthat is to say the hour of fear. It is a horror film directed by Park Jong-gyun. It is made up of several small segments where lots of Korean stars appear, including singers from major K-pop groups. The film is intended to be very dynamic, very entertaining, and is really designed for an audience of young adults. Moreover, Lotte has divided the ticket price by three for this very short format. The ticket costs 4,000 won, the equivalent of 2.70 euros.
If Korean producers reduce the length of films, it is because young people consume cinema differently. Long formats are having more and more difficulty attracting an audience that is used to very short, very engaging content. A video on TikTok is on average 42 seconds. And so, producers are finding it increasingly difficult to get their viewers to watch two-hour films. South Korean distributors believe that the recent drop in cinema attendance is largely due to this gap between the supply of big sagas and the demand for short, cheap products. This summer, they had already released another horror film of only 13 minutes, Night Fishing. The ticket was only 70 euro cents and the film did quite well.
Producers are not yet asking Korean directors to make films of only 30 minutes. But they suggest they cut out parallel stories that are not at the heart of the plot. So, there is a real trend towards shortening. There is now, in Korea, the symbolic mental barrier of 100 minutes. Beyond an hour and forty hours, a film is already considered too long. For example, this summer’s blockbusters, in the country, whether Escape or Project Silencewere all less than 100 minutes. Whereas last summer, the average of big hits was still over two hours.
