A remarkably weekend for parity, as the top six movies all sold over 340,000 tickets from Thursday night to Sunday night. I cannot remember the last time so many films did that well (well, over Christmas was pretty strong, but they had an extra holiday to add to the box office that weekend).
The dragon fantasy film ERAGON was the No. 1 film this weekend, selling 504,600 tickets since opening Thursday (about $3.4 million). Not a bad opening for a silly little B-picture.
200 POUND BEAUTY shot over the 5-million-attendance mark over the weekend, and is still doing quite well a month after its release. I think it is going to top 5.5 million… but I fear it will not match the 6.1 million of MY BOSS, MY TEACHER. Sigh. Would have been nice to depose that film from its perch as the top comedy of all time in Korea.
No. 3 went to HERB, with a decent 442,000. Kind of in the middle to be considered a success or disappointment. We will have to wait to see if the film has any legs. It if keeps chugging along, then I could see it doing quite well. Or it could drop like a stone.
NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM topped the 4-million line, a fairly impressive feat, too. MUSEUM is the biggest foreign movie in Korea since PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 2 last summer.
Even though DEATHNOTE 2: THE LAST NAME opened in No. 6, it sold 347,600 tickets, which is nearly 20% better than the first DEATHNOTE did back in early November.
| This Week | Title…………………………………. | Release Date | Screens Nationwide | Weekend Attendance (Seoul only) | Total Attendance |
| 1. | Eragon | 1.11 | 298 | 102,600 | 504,600 | 2. | 200-Pound Beauty | 12.14 | 271 | 101,600 | 5,164,600 |
| 3. | Herb | 1.11 | 285 | 90,800 | 442,800 | 4. | Deja Vu | 1.11 | 184 | 77,600 | 272,100 | 5. | Night at the Museum | 12.21 | 243 | 73,900 | 4,193,300 |
| 6. | Deathnote: The Last Name | 1.11 | 212 | 63,500 | 347,600 | 7. | Blood Diamond | 1.11 | 120 | 53,800 | 173,700 | 8. | Battle of Wits | 1.11 | 200 | 43,000 | 187,000 | 9. | Open Season | 1.04 | 150 | 17,300 | 283,800 | 10. | My Wife Is a Gangster 3 | 12.28 | 191 | 12,200 | 1,624,900 |
(Source: Film2.0)
The weird thing that confuses/amazes me is that MAPADO 2 apparently came in at No. 11, with around 40,000 tickets sold nationwide — despite that fact it will not be released until Thursday. Over 40,000 tickets sold just in advanced previews? There certainly does seem to be a buzz for the film, currently at No. 1 on Interpark’s advance reservation site, accounting for 38% of reservations (ROBOT TAEKWON V is second with 31%, then you drop all the way down to 4.3% for the third-place film, 200 POUND BEAUTY).
MAPADO was most notable, to me, for having a poster campaign that in no way resembled the actual movie:
It appears that the same marketing team is responsible for MAPADO 2:
Hi Mark.
I finally got round to seeing Casino Royale at the weekend. It wasn’t easy finding which cinema it was on.
Luckily the Korea Times had a list of the web pages for the downtown cinemas, but I had to go to each site in turn to find one that was showing the movie.
Is there a listings website that shows what’s on where? ( Even if it’s in Korean I might be able to figure it out)
I also saw Night at the Museum which I enjoyed more than the Bond movie!
Hi Jon:
There are plenty of Korean-language websites full of location and time information. Usually you want to go to the “yemae” section to get all the showtime information.
Cine 21 has this listing by movie. And this listing by theater. Cine 21, however, is rather pro-CGV, and gives short shrift to some other theaters. You can also try Megabox, whose cinemas often do not appear at Cine 21.
brilliant. thanks.