The little gift that keeps on thrilling
Parasite has disrupted the film industry — will it rattle the Academy Awards, too?
This time of year, the thousands of people who vote on the Oscars and other Hollywood awards receive piles of screeners. Studios hope to attract eyeballs — and votes.
But there’s one missing. Parasite, the Korean-language class thriller that has become a darling of both critics and audiences since coming out two months ago, is nowhere to be found.
The film’s U.S. distributor, Neon, has decided to hold off on sending out the movie until Christmas, an uncommonly late date for a film that has been out since October.
“It’s very purposeful. Theatres, a communal setting — that’s where we want voters to see this movie,” said Tom Quinn, Neon’s co-founder. Executives hope higher-quality viewing at voter screenings is worth the loss in wide exposure — a notable gamble.
But Parasite has been beating the odds for a while.
The film about a Seoul grifter family that ingratiates itself into a wealthy household has disrupted the industry — it’s a non-studio hit in 2019. That it’s in a foreign language only magnifies the feat.
But Parasite’s key trick may be yet to come: It could be the first foreign-language movie in the 91-year history of the Academy Awards to win best picture.
“If Parasite is able to win, it would completely upend the expectations of what a best picture is,” said Dave Karger, a host on TCM and a veteran Oscar analyst.
A victory would suggest a landmark moment for a business that has become more global — suggesting Hollywood, in at least some ways, is as eager to import the work of other countries as it is to export to them.
It would also likely prompt grumbling from some observers and rivals that Oscar voters are out of touch with mass tastes.
Like many experts, Karger said Parasite is a long shot to win Hollywood’s top prize. But the very fact that it’s considered a lock to land a nomination when nominees are announced on
Jan. 13 is itself a feat.
Only 11 foreign-language movies have ever been nominated for best picture, an average of about one per decade.
Winner of the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival last May, Bong Joon-ho’s movie seemed destined for a niche theatrical rollout in the U.S. and Canada in October. Any real discovery would follow later on streaming platforms. (Neon has a deal with Hulu.)
But the South Korean production soon began bucking the odds. Even before its theatrical release, Parasite generated a huge amount of social-media traffic, particularly among young people who don’t form a core part of the foreign-language audience. Soon runs in Los Angeles and New York were sold out. Other cities followed. (Postmedia Network film critic Chris Knight gave it a rare five-out-of-five star rating.)
By early December, it had reached US$18 million in domestic box office — double that of any other foreign-language movie this year. Forecasters put the ultimate total at US$25 million or higher.
The awards website Gold Derby, with a forecasting model based on expert polls, says Parasite has a Top 5 chance of all 2019 movies to win best picture, with odds of 10 per cent — just percentage points behind the leader, Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman.
To push it even higher, Neon and Cinetic Media, the New York-based company working on its awards campaign, are attempting an approach that emphasizes communal viewing.
They have held large numbers of voter screenings in New York and Los Angeles, hoping the movie’s twists play better in a group setting.
They have also pitched stories about the thriller’s have-andhave-not social overtones, which are hitting at the same time as income-equality debates among Democratic U.S. presidential candidates.
Foreign-language movies have historically had an uphill battle for best picture because they also occupy a separate category, and because many voters don’t know the stars and crew members.
Parasite is certainly considered an overwhelming favourite to win the Oscars’ international prize.
Parasite is part of a mini-boom in Korean cinema among harder core films fans that has seen retrospectives at upscale film societies and an interest sprout up in Korean films on streaming platforms.
But before Parasite, the theatrical business was decidedly tiny. One of the highest-grossing Korean-language movies in the modern era is Bong ’s own The Host, a monster movie that came out in 2006. Its domestic total: $2.2 million.
Neon expanded what’s possible by starting small.
It opened Parasite on just three screens, two in New York and one in Los Angeles, instead of the more typical four or five screens for art house films with high demand.
The small opening created a sense of scarcity, which fuelled anticipation. “We wanted to create that line-around-the-block feeling, to really event-ize it,” Quinn said.
It also did something else — jump up the so-called “perscreen averages” and giving a sense of a phenomenon.
The movie actually had a higher per-screen average than Avengers: Endgame, prompting a lot of favourable coverage, which in turn drew more consumers.
“It was a little manipulated to get that status,” said an executive at a rival company, asking not to be identified so as not to be seen criticizing a competitor.
“But with independent film, you’ve got to use all the tricks. And have a movie people really want to see.”
Tom Bernard, co-chief of Sony Pictures Classics, noted that whether it wins the Oscar or not, Parasite has pulled off an unlikely feat.
“It’s a foreign-language independent movie that has almost studio-level awareness,” he said. “That’s really not easy to do.”
The Washington Post