Korean Box Office Update (01/13-01/15, 2012)

Puss in Boots Holds Local Films at Bay

	Title	Release Date	Market Share	Weekend	Total	Screens
1	Puss in Boots (us)	1/11/12	33.80%	590,740	704,725	593
2	Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (us)	12/15/11	18.00%	362,326	6,914,588	461
3	Love On-Air	1/5/12	10.80%	225,174	781,810	358
4	The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (us)	1/11/12	9.50%	185,758	228,385	321
5	Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows (us)	12/21/11	7.70%	154,399	2,160,333	270
6	Perfect Game	12/21/11	6.40%	128,734	1,392,738	266
7	The Outback	1/12/12	3.30%	70,297	87,383	234
8	White Vengeance (hk)	1/11/12	2.70%	55,498	70,345	163
9	My Way	12/21/11	2.20%	45,009	2,121,331	219
10	Friends: Naki on Monster Island (jp)	12/29/11	1.70%	36,930	496,880	191

For the fifth weekend in a row a major Hollywood release has trumped local fare at the Korean box office.  A new champion, of the animated variety, rose to the top this week.  Overall business was up from 1.47 to 1.75 million admissions year on year while once again the market share for Korean films tumbled to 24%, from last year's 43%.

Shrek spinoff Puss in Boots had a big weekend with 590,740 tickets sold.  That's a lot more than Megamind which took the top spot at the same time last year.

MI4 added another 362,326 tickets to its enormous haul as it dropped less than a third and is now inches from the 7 million mark an could still threaten another milestone, making it the biggest film released in 2011.

Love On-Air (aka Wonderful Radio) had an encouraging small drop (20%) in its sophomore frame which, given poor reviews, I wasn't expecting.  The future looks a little rosier for the midlevel film but after such a mediocre opening this is closer to damage control than success.  Still, if it continues like this it could end up well north of the one million mark.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo opened with 185,758 which is not a particularly encouraging figure for a film tat was expected to play strongly in international territories, maybe word of mouth will bolster its run further down the line.  Perhaps Sherlock Holmes sequel Game of Shadows dropped about a third as it crossed the 2 million mark with its 154,399 weekend, a good showing for a sequel that has underperformed elsewhere.

Perfect Game stayed more or less flat this weekend with 154,399, which is impressive.  It will come close to the two million mark but is unlikely to cross it.  Animated film The Outback, featuring a number of K-pop star on vocal duties, opened soft 70,297.  Truth be told I hadn't even heard of the film before this weekend, I'm not sue who else did.

Hong Kong period epic White Vengeance began its run with 55,498 while mega-blockbuster and equally large box office bomb My Way slowed to 45,009 in its probable final top 10 finish.  Friends: Naki on Monster Island Japanese anime roudned out the top 10 with 36,930.

Next Week:  Lunar day weekend is nearly upon us and it's about time as the tired current local fare is in desperate need of replacement.  Opening next week are Pacemaker, Dancing Queen, Neverending Story, and Unbowed. Pacemaker looks to come out on top but let's hope it can nudge out foreign competition for a much needed local win.

Source: kobis.or.kr


The Korean Box Office Update is a weekly feature which provides detailed analysis of film box office sales over the Friday to Sunday period in Korea. It appears every Sunday evening or Monday morning (GMT+1) on Modern Korean Cinema. For other weekly features, take a look at Korean Cinema News and the Weekly Review Round-up. Reviews and features on Korean film also appear regularly on the site. 

To keep up with the best in Korean film you can sign up to our RSS Feed, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.