Korean Box Office Update (04/20/04/22, 2012)

Battleship Stays Afloat With Another First Place Finish

	Title	Release Date	Market Share	Weekend	Total	Screens
1	Battleship (us)	4/11/12	34.50%	516,874	1,948,608	624
2	The Scent	4/11/12	20.20%	296,923	846,007	396
3	Architecture 101	3/22/12	17.80%	268,730	3,316,655	439
4	Untouchable (fr)	3/22/12	6.00%	89,231	1,635,275	227
5	The Hunger Games (us)	4/5/12	3.40%	52,276	584,818	253
6	Over My Dead Body	3/29/12	3.30%	50,470	962,436	235
7	Titanic (us)	2/20/98	4.60%	43,375	336,272	144
8	Beauty and the Beast (us)	7/4/92	3.60%	39,949	140,555	173
9	The Ides of March (us)	4/19/12	2.10%	29,679	35,146	93
10	Heartbreaker (fr)	4/19/12	1.70%	25,198	30,263	175

A Hollywood blockbuster continues to lord over the Korean marketplace and it will likely switch with another next weekend when The Avengers rolls around but the news isn't all bad for local fare.  Even with no new openers the market share was still decent at 42%, this was a little under last year's 47% but then again a lot more tickets were sold this year as admissions were at 1.5 million versus 1.2 for 2011's similar frame.

Battleship dipped a little but remained strong with 516,874 for a first place finish.  It has already amassed nearly two million admissions but will suffer greatly at the hands of The Avengers, which opens next weekend.

The Scent, which had a mediocre start saw its fortunes reversed over the weekend as it increased 20% for a 296,923 frame, still nothing major but an encouraging sign nonetheless.

Architecture 101 had a slight uptick, even as it dropped onew spot and is now well over the three million mark after adding 268,730 admissions over the three days.

Untouchable was steady with another 89,231 tickets sold as it continues to impress with its remarkable run.

The Hunger Games continues to disappoint after its 52,276 frame, it's only over the half million mark at this point and will not make it to the next milestone.

Over My Dead Body had a slight drop and is now very close to the one million point after selling an additional 50,470 tickets.  While not a stellar result, passing the milestone would certainly save it some face.

Re-releases Titanic and Beauty and the Beast also saw small drops for 43,375 and 39,949 respectively but they won't be around much longer.

The Ides of March had a soft 29,679 opening while Heartbreaker also opened but with a slighter smaller 25,198 admissions despite a higher theatre count.  Still though, it's not everyday that you see two French films in the Korean top 10!

Next week the focus will be shifting to The Avengers, which is almost guaranteed to lure over a million viewers during its opening.  A Muse will also debut but may have a tough time as a result, despite some good buzz.

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. 

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