CJ saps aspiring small filmmakers

A scene from mega hit movie “Masquerade,” produced by CJ E&M and Realies Pictures, has surpassed 10 million ticket sales. Korea Times

Vice Chairman Lee dominates in marketing, producing

Lee Mi-kyung CJ Group vice chairman

CJ E&M has become so dominant it leaves little room for small and independent moviemakers.

The media giant accounted for a whopping 72.4 percent in audience share for domestic movies as of October, according to the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) Wednesday.

“When combined with international releases, the rate was still 50.5 percent,” KOFIC researcher Yoon Ha said Wednesday in a telephone interview.

The mastermind behind this success of industrial scale is CJ Group Vice Chairman Lee Mi-kyung, who was also deeply involved in the making, distributing and marketing of “Gwanghae: the Man Who Became the King,” a smash hit costume drama with the English title, “Masquerade.”

The film was a box office success with ticket sales surpassing 10 million.

Lee’s firm bankrolled the firm’s success. She led an investment of $300 million in American film company DreamWorks in 1995.

CJ also has an extensive network of theaters under the brand CGV.

The vice chairman, who earned a bachelor’s degree in family studies and education at Seoul National University and a master’s in East Asian studies from Harvard University, took the lead in other films including “The Good, the Bad, and the Weird” (2008) and “Mother” (2009), all of which were well received.

“Gwanghae” swept 15 awards out of 26 at this year’s Daejong Film Awards, testifying to not only the merits of the film but the influence of CJ and Lee.

“CJ E&M spent about 3 billion won on marketing whereas, as you already know, director Kim Ki-duk could only afford some 700 million to market his

Venice top-prize winner Pieta,” said film critique Park Woo-sung Tuesday in a telephone interview. “

Last year’s average cost of making a Korean movie was approximately 2.27 billion, which is less than the marketing costs for Masquerade.”

“There is nothing wrong with big companies distributing movies but ones like Masquerade have been screened in over 1,000 theaters nationwide. You know what it means? There is absolutely no room for low budget films.”

Kim Ki-duk, the winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, expressed a similar view during a press meeting last month

“Some movies dominate the theaters because they want to break the 10 million mark and I see this phenomenon as a cultural dictatorship,” said Kim. “Korean audiences have become culture slaves.”

On Nov. 15, film director Min Boung-hun announced an early end to the run for “Touch” due to unfair screening scheduling at major theaters nationwide.

Small-scale, independent film producers are increasingly missing out on opportunities to show their work unless they are supported by huge distributors like CJ E&M.

“It’s true that some films that are less popular, therefore less profitable and lose their designated screenings in multiplexes and even become double features with others,” said Yoon. “Additionally, all new films should be entitled to a minimum screening period and most importantly, what we need is a rigorous set of rules in place. The film industry needs to reach an agreement on this issue.”

Park said, “We need to have a screening quota system for small-scale movies and in order to do that, we need support from the government.” <The Korea Times/Rachel Lee>