Joker might have broken every record before it, but another movie has quietly been telling its own impressive story.
Parasite, directed by Okja and Snowpiercer's Bong Joon-ho, has become the highest-grossing South Korean movie of all time at the US box office with $14.4 million (as of November 17), following on from delivering the highest-ever site average for a foreign-language movie of $131,072 over its opening weekend.
Overall, Parasite has taken an extremely strong $111.8 million worldwide (including $70.9 million in South Korea).
Compared to Joker's billion-dollar haul, that might not seem like all that much, but it's been a while since a foreign-language movie has broken out into the mainstream in such a way.
But why has Parasite managed to do what even Netflix's major Oscar contender Roma couldn't?
Enter the #BongHive.
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Before Parasite received its world premiere at Cannes in May, the hashtag was created by writers Karen Han, Iana Murray and Ella Kemp, initially as something to pass the time.
"Within the realms of stan culture, I would argue that hashtags are more applicable to actors and musicians. Ariana Grande has her army of fans and they have their own hashtag. Justin Bieber has his, One Direction, all of them. But we thought, 'You know who needs one and doesn't have one right now? Bong Joon-ho'," Kemp told Letterboxd.
"We tweeted it a couple of times, but I think what mattered the most was that there was no context, there was no logic, but there was consistency and insistence."
Had Parasite been a failure with the critics, that could have been the end of the #BongHive, but the movie was incredibly well-received, going on to win the festival's biggest prize, the Palme d'Or.
It's still at 99% now on Rotten Tomatoes with 290 reviews and is Letterboxd's highest-rated narrative feature movie ever.
US distributor NEON spotted an opportunity and ran with it, leading to memes, special-edition merchandise and even a ringtone based on a jingle a character says in the movie. The company have been fully embracing the social group, opening up Parasite to an audience outside of a typical arthouse crowd.
It helps that Parasite is a movie that reviews have insisted is one that it's best to go into knowing as little as possible. That does make it difficult to talk about, but also adds a must-watch factor to know what all the fuss is about.
In the least spoilery terms possible, Parasite focuses on two families: the wealthy (but naive) Park Family and the poor (but street-smart) Kim Family.
The two families are brought together when the Kim children manage to become a tutor and an art therapist to the Park children, but that's just the start of Parasite's many twists and turns, which are worth experiencing first-hand.
Tackling some very real-world issues of class and social standing, the movie has clearly given audiences plenty to chew over after seeing it, adding to the increased discussion on Twitter and other platforms.
The disappointment for UK audiences is that they can't join the debate until Parasite is released on February 7 next year.
By then though, there might be an extra angle to why everyone's talking about the movie.
South Korea has already submitted it to be their nomination for the Best International Feature Film at the Oscars, and the odds are increasing that Parasite will be a Best Picture contender as well.
If that happens, it'd still be a very outside shot of winning it, as only one other foreign-language movie has ever won Best Picture – and that was the largely-silent The Artist. But just to be among the contenders would give Parasite a box office boost in the UK and elsewhere.
Long live the #BongHive.
Parasite is out now in the US and is released in the UK on February 7, 2020.
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
