Chapter 162: Collapse (1)
Chapter 162: Collapse (1)
[Remaining Seats: 0]
No matter how much they changed the time slot or switched platforms, the number stayed at 0.
In other words, on its opening day, Mueon:ga had launched into a crazed box-office race.
Which was only natural.
Expectations had already been blazing hot from the Cannes Film Festival win, and then Ryu Sunho’s radical marketing had poured oil on the fire.
Especially the sound-specialized theater that Han Seungwoo had fought so hard to secure. It had managed the feat of selling out every seat the moment reservations opened.
Because of that, posts like this began appearing on secondhand trading sites.
Looking for a good seat in the sound-specialized theater... will pay 3x face value...
Tickets were so hard to get that scalpers had started circulating.
Once premium was stacked on top of premium, ticket prices in underground channels sometimes climbed past 100,000 won.
The situation was not very different in regular theaters.
Even though plenty of screens had been secured, the seats still could not keep up with demand.
In the end, the three major multiplex chains opened “Super Early Bird” screenings at 6 a.m., even earlier than the usual first showings, to handle the demand, but those too immediately joined the march of sold-out screenings as soon as they opened.
Thanks to that, a bizarre sight appeared across the theater district.
“Wow... this is seriously the first time in my life I’ve come to watch a movie at this hour. Is this even real?”
“It’s not just us. Everyone here is probably doing this for the first time. I didn’t even know movie theaters opened at this hour.”
It was 6:30 in the morning.
At an hour when people were still under their blankets or barely rubbing the sleep from their eyes, the theater lobby was packed to the brim.
“It’s got a runtime of 100 minutes, right? If I grab a taxi the second it ends and rush to the office, I’ll make it right on time for work.”
“I put in leave as soon as I succeeded in booking it. The second I finish the movie, I’m going home to take a nap.”
“...Shut up, I’m jealous.”
And it was not just office workers before their shifts.
There were also quite a lot of students in school uniforms.
“Ugh, the fact that I woke up at this hour just to see Oppa Sunho is a miracle. If my mom finds out, she’ll probably faint.”
“I already got smacked on the back before coming. She thought I was going to school early to study and even made beef soup for me.”
“...That one kind of sounds like you deserved it.”
“Wow, but look at the poster. It feels like they deliberately made him look a little haggard to match the movie’s atmosphere, but his visuals are still breaking right through it.”
“I’m telling you, he’s just flat-out the top visual among male actors right now. No argument.”
“And on top of that, he can actually act. That’s just cheating.”
“But seriously, they said winning Best Actor at Cannes was that huge of a deal?”
“Of course it is. He beat out all the insane actors from around the world and took first place. We can’t even make top ten in our class.”
“...Why’d you have to hit me with facts all of a sudden? That hurt.”
After that, it was time for entry.
Excitement was written all over the faces of the audience as they poured inside in droves.
And about two hours later, even after the movie ended and the lights in the theater came back on, hardly anyone got up from their seats right away.
Most of them just stared blankly at the screen or let out long, deep sighs.
“......”
Then, one by one, they staggered out of the auditorium.
Once they had barely regained their senses, exclamations poured out of their mouths like a dam bursting open.
“...That was completely insane.”
“...Hey, I held my breath the whole time watching. My head’s pounding. I almost ran out of oxygen.”
“No, but how can someone’s gaze look like that? He didn’t say a single line, but I felt every emotion.”
“For a second, I seriously forgot the lead was Ryu Sunho. I thought he was a completely different person.”
“Exactly... in the end, even that face got buried under the acting. To erase his own handsomeness with acting, seriously.”
“No, but how can a face and body move like that...? It felt like his joints were moving separately. In the best possible way, that was fucking shocking.”
They returned to their respective daily lives, but they carried the impact they had experienced from mouth to mouth, stirring up anticipation in people who still had not seen the movie.
A massive wave was being formed.
That same afternoon.
Inside the marketing team office of the film production company Film Era, the employees had not been able to leave their monitors all day.
They were monitoring online posts related to Mueon:ga, but the speed and volume of the reactions were almost impossible to handle.
Of course, short impressions were being posted constantly.
There were also long posts interpreting the hidden meanings in the movie, and all kinds of spoilers were even flooding in.
“Team Leader, I’m monitoring the communities, but... there are way too many spoilers going up. Should we take action?”
“What kind? Is it that serious?”
“No, it’s not really that it’s serious. It’s more that absurd fake spoilers are running wild everywhere...”
“Then leave them alone. That’s all interest too. They’re having fun on their own.”
Not only would it have been difficult to request deletions one by one, but the current phenomenon itself was proof of enormous interest, so it was fine to view it positively.
In truth, Mueon:ga was not the kind of movie where spoilers were some decisive twist anyway.
That was not the side they needed to worry about in the first place.
Centered around social media, a new viewing-verification culture had appeared.
The so-called “Mute Challenge” had started trending.
Short-form videos of people holding up their Mueon:ga movie tickets while silently mouthing words with their own audio muted had begun flooding feeds.
It was the result of pride in having watched the movie earlier than others combining with the desire to gain attention by riding a trend.
In just one day, challenge videos had surpassed 1,000 and were rapidly turning into a viral craze.
It was a positive phenomenon, with the audience voluntarily promoting the movie.
The Film Era CEO, after receiving all these reports, was grinning from ear to ear.
“Good. Great work. The director will be thrilled if he sees this. I should go visit him for the first time in a while and earn some favor.”
Then, around 11 p.m., the Film Era CEO visited Director Baek Junbong’s studio carrying a huge fruit basket and a laptop.
“Sir, let’s check today’s numbers together. Isn’t this a historic day?”
“Haha, you really do prepare everything. Come in.”
Director Baek Junbong welcomed him with a faint smile.
Soon after, Ryu Sunho and Moon Ganghyeok also arrived, their hands full of gifts.
“No, you two could’ve just come yourselves. Why are you carrying all this stuff too?”
“We were able to get such a good result thanks to all your hard work, Director, so we prepared them out of gratitude.”
“What hard work? You two are the ones who did all the suffering. Rolling around on those freezing floors.”
This time, Director Baek Junbong greeted the actors with a bright smile.
Soon, he pushed the fruit basket aside and put down the wine Ryu Sunho had brought in its place.
“Sir, well... I suffered too...”
“You know how much you hounded me over the budget. I still remember you whining about how expensive the mirrors were.”
“......”
Unable to argue, the CEO pressed his lips shut.
The atmosphere was warm and cheerful, but as the hands on the wall clock crept toward midnight, the air grew heavier.
11:50 p.m.
11:55 p.m.
Even Director Baek Junbong, who had been joking around until moments ago, had gone silent.
The fingertips holding his teacup were trembling ever so slightly.
He was a veteran who had been through all the storms life could throw at him, but even so, there was no way he could avoid feeling tense at the moment when the work of his lifetime was being judged by the public.
“All right, one minute left now.”
The CEO spoke in a solemn voice.
As if by prior agreement, everyone crowded around the laptop screen.
The Korean Film Council’s integrated ticketing network glowed with a bluish light.
“Hoo...”
Moon Ganghyeok ran a dry hand over his face, clearly tense.
Then midnight came.
“All right... then let’s check.”
With trembling fingers, the CEO hit refresh.
The loading icon spun around and around.
At last, the numbers appeared.
[Mueon:ga]
[Daily Audience Count: 1,712,453]
[Cumulative Audience Count: 1,725,892 (including preview screenings)]
“......”
For a moment, silence fell.
The number felt so unreal that it was as if their brains had glitched trying to process it.
Director Baek Junbong removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
Then he looked at the screen again.
“I-Is this real? This is the opening-day score...? Not 170,000, but 1.7 million...?”
“I-I think so, sir!”
The CEO’s voice cracked.
“It really is the opening-day score! It’s the highest opening-day record in history!”
Only then did reality come rushing in.
Overcome with emotion, the Film Era CEO opened his arms to hug Director Baek Junbong.
But Director Baek Junbong naturally turned his body aside to avoid him, then grabbed Ryu Sunho, who was standing next to him, in a crushing embrace.
“Thank you, Sunho...! Thanks to you, I’ve achieved something this great in my film career...! Thank you, truly!”
Ryu Sunho, too, held back his surging emotions and patted Director Baek’s back.
Moon Ganghyeok also approached them, his eyes reddened.
The CEO could only awkwardly lower his arms, left hanging in midair, and sniffle.
That day, Mueon:ga set major records for both the highest opening audience and the highest single-day audience count.
One week after release.
Day after day, the news was filled with stories generated by Mueon:ga.
[Mueon:ga surpasses 5 million in just 7 days since release... unstoppable box-office momentum]
[Ryu Sunho syndrome, Cannes made the right choice... a masterpiece that captivated both critics and the public]
[Director Baek Junbong’s dazzling return, and the discovery called Ryu Sunho]
Content Trinity was in a festive mood.
By contrast, the atmosphere at Haegang Entertainment, which was distributing Boundary, looked ready to sink through rock bottom.
It was painful enough that they had returned from Cannes empty-handed, but on top of that, the competing film Mueon:ga was monopolizing every spotlight in existence.
They had pushed back the scheduled release date a little to avoid the massive truck coming their way.
But that was not nearly enough.
The result was a disastrous reservation rate.
“12%? Hey, does that even make sense? Do you know how much we invested, and all we’ve got is a 12% reservation rate?”
“Well... their momentum is just so overwhelming... the audience all rushed over there...”
“Bullshit... what, did we not spend money? Are our actors lacking? We even cast a ten-million-ticket actor, and this is what we get?”
At the executive director’s shouting, the employees all dropped their heads.
“What about adjusting the distribution schedule? Can’t we push it back further?”
“We’ve already finished negotiations with the theaters, and the ad slots are already in rotation, so if we pull out now the penalty fees will be even worse.”
“You people only ever say things that piss me off.”
The executive director yanked his tie loose roughly and fumed.
“Then change the method.”
“...Pardon?”
“A head-on fight won’t work, right? Then we ride their wave.”
He wrote Mueon:ga and Boundary side by side on the whiteboard, then slashed a red line between them and tied them together.
“Sitting around in despair is third-rate. Climbing onto a running horse is first-rate. So link us to them somehow. No matter what, tie us to Mueon:ga. Rewrite every single press release.”
“The press releases?”
“Tell them to emphasize that it was the only Korean film invited to the Cannes competition section alongside Mueon:ga. Frame it like, ‘A film that looked toward the same place as Ryu Sunho,’ or ‘Two masterpieces chosen by Cannes.’ Keep exposing it like that.”
“Ah...!”
“When people search for Mueon:ga, if Boundary can come up alongside it, then if we force our articles to trail behind theirs like that, the situation will improve compared to now.”
It was a thoroughly parasitic marketing strategy, trying to piggyback somehow on the explosive buzz surrounding Mueon:ga and Ryu Sunho.
“Stuff your pride away and save the movie first.”
After that, articles started pouring out.
For every five articles about Mueon:ga, about one article about Boundary would quietly wedge itself in.
The titles and content of those articles were blatant.
They were clearly trying to mention Mueon:ga by any means possible so they would get caught together in search results.
[Ryu Sunho and Gong Hajin, the two men loved by Cannes]
[An analysis of the appeal of Boundary, the other film that lit up Cannes alongside Mueon:ga]
And at that moment, inside a van moving between schedules, Gong Hajin saw the article and spat out a curse.
“Ha... fuck, seriously!!”
The manager in the front seat flinched and cautiously checked the rearview mirror.
But Gong Hajin saw nothing.
That stream of articles made it look as though they were trying to sell him by attaching him to Ryu Sunho’s box-office success.
It was enough to drive him mad with wounded pride.
The two men loved by Cannes?
What a joke.
Cannes had loved only Ryu Sunho, and he knew better than anyone that he himself had been nothing but a complete side piece there.
“Turn the car around. We’re going home.”
“Hyung, you still have the interview—”
“Are your ears blocked? Don’t make me say it twice.”
At Gong Hajin’s shout, the manager hurriedly jerked the wheel.
.