Three Stage Performances and Herding of Domestic and

This article analyzes film performances in the Korean movie market utilizing three-stage models that incorporate available information in three different stages of the movie life cycle, i.e., at the time of its release, at the end of the first week, and at the end of its life cycle. Based on the premise that the performance of a movie is affected principally by factors of scale, evaluation, and competition, we attempted to ascertain the effects on these factors on performances, and how they differ in different stages. Also, by analyzing domestic and foreign movies released in Korea separately, we were able to compare the different effects of the three factors on the performances of the two categories of movies. Additionally, our movie performance models incorporated herding behavior among the customers. Our results demonstrate that herding is prominently observed after the first week only for domestic movies. In general, the scale factor has been shown to be most important for movie performances in all stages. For foreign films, it is particularly critical for the first week and total performances. Whereas the evaluation factor influences domestic film performance more strongly at the screen choice stage, it affects the performance of foreign films more strongly in the later stages of the life cycle. As compared to foreign films, domestic film performance appears to be more sensitive to the competition factor. We also discuss the effects of covariates such as genre and symbolicity on movie performance