According to the LA Times blog “The Big Picture,” it’s due to differences in respect for copyrights:
As Moore noted, one of the countries that has the least amount of piracy is Japan. “There is a very low social acceptability in Japan for stealing copyrighted work — you just don’t see movies showing up online right away there,” he said. So with that in mind, Paramount is holding back the release of “Iron Man 2″ in Japan for several weeks, having little fear about the country being swamped with bootleg copies of the film.
However, when it comes to Korea, it’s a different story. “For better or worse, there are certain countries — notably like Korea — where it’s culturally acceptable to download movies online pretty much right away,” said Moore. “By the third week of a movie’s release, you’re starting to see a large part of the audience who will start consuming the film online. It’s why Korea has almost no home video business anymore.”
So Paramount knew it couldn’t afford to wait. It released “Iron Man 2″ in Korea this weekend — and is hoping for the best. “There are still some countries that don’t respect the rights of intellectual property,” said Moore. “So we’re working aggressively with them to address those issues. But it means that when we open a big new film, we have to really understand the country’s cultural attitudes when it comes to formulating our release dates.”
Ouch.
(HT to reader)
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I was thinking exactly the same thing; why Korea before anywhere else? But I was also thinking, why not everwhere at the same time? A simultaneous world-wide release.
Almost on-topic – Did anyone else notice that Korea, Japan, and most of Southeast Asia are lumped in with America (North and South) with the Blu-ray region code A/1? Interesting. With ordinary DVDs, Korea/Japan/SE Asia were in their own region 3, while even the Americas were split between Regions 1 and 4.
I’m glad to see the number of regions decreasing, eventually I hope to just 1 region (earth/universe). There are even those who say the days of DVD (Bluray or otherwise) are numbered, anyway, so it might not matter in the long run.
A few thoughts:
- I had thought the difference in release dates was for Korea to tke better advantage of elevated Children’s Day box office numbers. But that was idle speculation.
- The video store where I used to rent DVDs (really!) went out of business a few months ago. Iwas unable to find a replacement.
- A classroom activity on adverbs of frequency had my students asking each other how often they rent DVDs. None of them do, ever. Not exactly a scientific poll, but still.
- For what it’s worth, despite piracy, Korea can be a strong box office force. The amount of money Hollywood can count on from Korean audiences for blockbuster movies like this still rivals Japan, even with Korea’s significantly smaller population. The first “Iron Man” movie made more than three times as much money in Korea than Japan. The sequel is on pace to outpace the original considerably, as the opening weekend was up 79% versus the original. Source: boxofficemojo.
For not pirating you get … a later release! I guess there’s always an incentive to start …
I remember the same issue with “Taken.” I had it in DVD here in Korea before it was even in the theatres in Canada.
And, yes, that was a good set-up for a Canada joke.
I had asked some students who were programmers why Korea never developed a video game system while Japan had developed many. They instantly and unanimously answered that Koreans pirate way too many games for a video game system to ever be profitable here.
That’s a really diplomatic way to put it.
Hub of Piracy!
Hub of piracy ? good, at least they are the hub of something
@4, Taken was actually released in Korea a good year before it was released anywhere else in the world. Just check IMBD. I saw it in the theater here, and then about 9 months later I saw interviews with Liam Niesen promoting the movie.
@2, Your right, the film industry does make a lot of money off of the Korean audiences. Koreans turn up at movies en masse.
One of the innovations that Hollywood seems to be working on that could boost sales is all of the 3d stuff. Sure you can download some movie that has a shitty sound quality and was produced before all of the special effects get edited in, or you can go see Avatar in 3d and have your noodle baked.
Ladron,
On the other hand, because of piracy, Koreans have developed a profitable business model for online games!
It sounds like they are trying to train Japan to become “pirates” by punishing them.
It also sounds like Korean pirate “market competition” has forced Paramount to provide a better(quicker) service.
I don’t know the full story with “Taken,” but I know that films which look like they might bomb sometimes get shopped around internationally first. If they can perform well abroad, distributors are more likely to give them the green light. “Taken” performed very well here in South Korea, and I’m sure that helped calm nervous investors. Conversely, a film like “Coronado” was released abroad, and failed miserably. It never got a US release.
Strange post in the LA Times. Iron Man II was released in over 50 countries and territories last weekend. I do not know why Korea was singled out. International day-and-date releases are becoming the norm for big Hollywood films. Japan is the odd man out in this case.
Yes, Korea increasingly gets movies and TV shows more quickly because of copyright concerns. But that is true pretty much everywhere around the world.
“One of the innovations that Hollywood seems to be working on that could boost sales is all of the 3d stuff. Sure you can download some movie that has a shitty sound quality and was produced before all of the special effects get edited in, or you can go see Avatar in 3d and have your noodle baked.”
You can also see all the movies shot to be shown 2d that were rendered in 3d for a quick buck and feel you’ve been robbed.
#13
“I do not know why Korea was singled out.”
It’s either one of two possibilities: crappy research or bias.
Whoops, three. There’s also: stirring up controversy to boost circulation.
Question: I wonder what role (if any) Korea’s world leading broadband speeds have had with piracy? I mean… torrents are bandwidth hogs (so I’ve heard).
Could it be that Koreans aren’t any better pirates than anyone else but because of their broadband speeds movies just get disseminated faster into the population?
Interesting point raised Wangkon but i don’t think it’s a key element, i think national attitudes toward copyrighted content are more important: we have Europe’s highest piracy rate here and one of the highest in the world, and nobody as far as i know has ever accused us of being a broadband powerhouse
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