It is not hyperbole to say that the screen has become the Korean cinema industry’s tomb. Following the suc cess of two films, “12.12: The Day” and “Exhuma,” other highly anticipated commercial films experienced a severe lack of success. The films starring the handsome Kang Dong-won, Park Bo-gum, and Ha Jung-woo, the youngest person to ever exceed 100 million viewers at the box office are among the noteworthy failures. Son Seok-gu, widely known as "Gu over Gucci," was not suc cessful either.

 “Alienoid,” Chungmuro’s lavish follow-up, was not well received at the box office either. Both of the “Alienoid” sequels were directed by Choi Dong-hoon, one of the most successful Korean filmmakers. The goal of the second sequel, which came out in January, was to exact payback for the first film’s 1.54 million box office earnings in 2022 but only attracted 1.43 million viewers. With a production budget of roughly 70 billion won for the sequel, this was a massive project with an extremely expensive cast. Nevertheless, it was a huge shock to the cinema business in many respects when it was launched as a miserable box office disaster.

 Yoon Yeo-jeong, the Oscar-winning actress who took home the Best Supporting Actress prize, was similarly unable to escape the mire of dismal box office results. The box office receipts for the February release of “Dog Days” came to 360,000, well below the roughly 2 million break-even figure. Although Yoon Yeo-jeong was one of the many well-known stars in this masterpiece, the out come was unsatisfactory.

 The first half of 2024’s commercial film performance amply demonstrates that the adage “top actor = guaran teed box office” is no longer applicable. More than any thing, the issue is that, even in the case of box office success, the audience was turned off by the poor produc tion that depended solely on celebrity.