NOTES ON ENTERTAINMENT, CULTURE AND MORE FROM KOREA (OR WHEREVER)

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Korea Weekend Box Office - Aug. 3-5

The big-budget, cgi-fest D-WAR continued its strong opening over the weekend, taking in 2.95 million admissions, or about $20.1 million, since its opening Wednesday, according to its distributor Showbox. That works out to the second-best opening ever in Kore, ahead of SPIDER-MAN 3, and just behind THE HOST.

(Note: I have no idea where Film 2.0 got their low numbers from this week. The official boxoffice system, KOBIS, had 2.7 million admissions off of 94% of the national boxoffice. But Showbox's official number was 2.95 million).

Given the weak word of mouth on D-WAR, I would be surprised if it makes it to 10-million admissions. It will do well, but I think THE HOST's record is safe.

The No. 2 spot went to CJ Entertainment’s MAY 18, earning nearly $5 million over the weekend to bring its 11-day cum to about $23.2 million (3.4 million admissions, according to CJE).

The Korean horror film EPITAPH, distributed by Studio 2.0, opened a somewhat disappointing fifth, earning about $2 million.

Together, those three films accounted for over 78% of the national boxoffice last weekend, a nice turnaround after three months of Hollywood domination.

Title - Weekend Admissions - Total Nationwide Admissions
1. D-War - 1,931,947 - 2,770,563 (Korean)
2. May 18 - 932,557 - 3,219,124 (Korean)
3. Die Hard 4.0 - 259,631 - 2,956,606
4. Ratatouille - 188,553 - 703,101
5. Epitaph - 185,414 - 296,580 (Korean)
6. Transformers - 115,260 - 7,276,979
7. 1408 - 108,793 - 170,965
8. Harry Potter and the Long Title - 70,703 - 3,652,325
9. Evan Almighty - 26,269 - 228,447
10. Hitcher - 10,873 - 18,268
(Source: KOBIS)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't mean to be pedantic, but it's EpitaPh, not EpitaTh.

Mark Russell said...

Not pedantic at all. One mistake could have been anything. But two or three times? That was just dumb. Thanks.