Korea Weekend Box Office - July 3-5

TRANSFORMERS 2: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN continued its assault on the Korean box office (not to mention on eardrums, sanity, etc.), accounting for a huge 66 percent of all movie ticket sales last weekend. Michael Bay's robot film pulled in another 9.86 billion won ($7.8 million) on the weekend to bring its total to 35.28 billion won ($27.8 million) -- that is ahead of the opening of Bong Joon-ho's THE HOST, depending on how you count these things.

The blockbuster has now had over 5.2 million admissions in 12 days, making it by far the biggest foreign opening ever in Korea. Could TRANSFORMERS 2 be the first foreign film to make it to 10 million admissions? Possibly. I do not see any huge films on the calendar for the next couple of weeks (HARRY POTTER on the 15th, then HAEUNDAE on the 23rd). Although traditionally Hollywood films do not sustain at the box office as well as Korean films do.

After TRANSFORMERS, the next three films on the chart were all Korean, so I guess that is kind of good news. RUNNING TURTLE continues to hold up, landing in No. 2 with 1.84 billion won to bring its total to 16.18 billion won ($12.7 million).

The uplifting tale of some scrappy women overcoming the odds to compete in an unpopular sport FOREVER THE MOMENT BRONZE MEDAL had to be a disappointment -- despite a big advertising push and a big opening on over 500 screens, the weightlifting drama made just 1.78 billion won ($1.4 million) over the weekend (barely 251,000 admissions).

This Week	Title............................................	Release Date	Screens Nationwide	Weekend Revenue (bil. won)	Total Revenue (bil. won)
1.	Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen	6.24	1076	9.86	35.28
2.	Running Turtle (Geobuki Dallinda- Korean)	6.11	402	1.84	16.18
3.	Bronze Medalist (Kingkongeul Deulda - Korean)	7.01	529	1.78	2.27
4.	Blood Pledge (Yeogo Goedam 5 - Korean)	6.18	352	0.52	3.66
5.	Night at the Museum 2	6.04	254	0.25	12.25
6.	Missing Linx	6.24	204	0.21	0.65
7.	Mother (Madeo - Korean)	5.28	220	0.12	19.79
8.	Terminator: Salvation	5.21	118	0.084	29.60
9.	The Unknown Woman	7.02	21	0.066	0.093
10.	Drag Me to Hell	6.11	23	0.20	1.82

(Source: KOBIS - Figures represent 98% of nationwide box office)