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The screenplay and storyboard set for Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite”

Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite, directed is enjoying the “Oscar effect” after winning four Academy Awards, including best picture and best director. The film is taking off in overseas box offices as it appears in more North American theaters and draws in British viewers to boot. There are signs of a second boom for the film in its home market of South Korea as well, amid a spike in sales of a book set including the screenplay and storyboard and an increase in views of Bong’s previous films on streaming services.

According to Feb. 11 reports in the foreign press, including American entertainment magazine Variety, Neon, the North American distributor of “Parasite,” is planning to boost its release from 1,060 theaters on Feb. 10 to over 2,000 this weekend.

“The distributor appears to have expanded the release because Academy Award winners get major press coverage, leading to more awareness of the film and, as a result, more ticket sales. In North America, films that win best picture are generally said to receive around a 20% boost in box office sales,” explained film critic Yoon Pil-lip.

As of Tuesday, “Parasite” had brought in US$35.53 million in the North American market alone, ranking sixth among all non-English language films to be released there.

The UK has also been bitten by the “Parasite” bug. Variety reported that the film, which opened there on Feb. 7, had earned about 1.4 million pounds on its opening weekend alone, including previews, “breaking the record for a foreign-language film’s opening weekend.” The film’s British distributor is also planning to expand its release from 136 locations to over 400.

The triumph of “Parasite” at the Oscars is also having an impact in South Korea. Sales are soaring for a set of the film’s screenplay and storyboards, which had been released by Plain Publishing back in October 2019. This two-volume set includes the screenplay and storyboards, which were prepared by Bong himself, as well as interviews and sketches about the creative process and the world of cinema and scenes that were edited but not released.

“This is a record of what may well have been my greatest loneliness and solitude, the private moments of tranquility before I entered the joyous chaos of the set,” Bong writes in the book.

According to figures released on the morning of Feb. 11, this set of books — which had been selling 10-15 copies a day — made 1,110 sales at online bookseller Yes24 in the day after the Academy Awards ceremony, reaching the 10th spot on the overall bestseller list.

Another thousand copies were snapped up on the website of Kyobo Book Centre. “We’ve temporarily run out of copies, and the set will be back in stock on Feb. 24. Customers can still find copies at some of our physical outlets,” a company spokesperson said.

Aladdin Books had also moved more than 1,300 copies by the afternoon of Feb. 11.

In addition, video streaming services have seen a major increase in views of Bong’s previous works. According to Watcha Play, Bong’s films soared up the charts on the evening of Feb. 10, after the awards were announced in Korea. “Snowpiercer” (1st) and “The Host” (2nd) claimed the top two spots on the most-watched list, while “Memories of Murder” (4th), “Mother” (6th), and “Barking Dogs Never Bite” (7th) all entered the top 10. Just one day before the awards, “Memories of Murder” had been the only film on the list.

The screenplay and storyboard set for Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite”

“The views for all of Bong Joon-ho’s earlier films rose by a factor of 4 to 9.9. And in the case of the nearly unknown ‘Digital Short Films by Three Directors,’ single-day views increased by a factor of 467,” said a spokesperson for Watcha.

This second “Parasite” fever is expected to peak with the release of the film’s black-and-white version on Feb. 26.

By Yu Sun-hui and Lee Ju-hyeon, staff reporters

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