Korea Sets August Deadline for Six-Month Film Holdback
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- South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and KOFIC convened the inaugural session of the Public-Private Consultative Body for Improving Korean Film Distribution Structure in Seoul, with 22 participants spanning production, distribution, exhibition, TVOD and SVOD sectors.
- The committee is targeting an August deadline for a voluntary holdback accord and will also weigh a proposed screen cap limiting auditoriums per single title — a measure domestic filmmakers have lobbied for to curb multiplex concentration.
- The effort runs alongside a National Assembly bill that would impose a mandatory six-month holdback before films migrate to streaming, but the panel's mandate is self-regulation rather than waiting on legislation.
- Culture Minister Chae Hwi-yong, who attended the session, pledged to "actively lead discussions to arrive at a holdback agreement that maximizes film industry revenues while appropriately reflecting market realities and minimizing potential side effects."
- The National Assembly earlier this year approved a KRW65.59 billion ($47.5 million) emergency supplementary budget for the film sector — the largest such allocation in South Korea's history — while KOFIC expanded its mid-budget production support program.
- The market context is mixed: historical drama "The King's Warden" became the highest-grossing Korean film ever at KRW151.8 billion ($110 million), and Q1 2026 theatrical revenue hit its highest level since the pandemic began, but annual box office remains well below pre-pandemic norms.
- Yeon Sang-ho's zombie thriller "Colony", which premiered in Midnight Screenings at Cannes before opening in South Korea on May 21, captured 71.85% of the domestic market in its debut weekend with $9.4 million from 1,283,343 admissions.
Why it matters: South Korean distributors and exhibitors have eight weeks to agree on self-imposed terms or face a legislated six-month streaming holdback; whichever path wins, exhibitors gain protection from accelerated streaming migration, while streamers lose a window of same-day content and multiplex chains face a screen-cap mechanism that could dilute blockbusters like "Colony" (which took 71.85% of last weekend's market).
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