KBO: Masquerade Still Top After Enormous Holiday Week (10/05-10/07, 2012)

Masquerade Still Top After Enormous Holiday Week

	Title	Release Date	Market Share	Weekend	Total	Screens
1	Masquerade	9/13/12	48.00%	849,999	8,220,479	867
2	Taken 2 (us)	9/27/12	16.20%	271,598	2,094,497	507
3	Ghost Sweepers	10/3/12	14.80%	264,961	617,456	479
4	Brave (us)	9/27/12	10.40%	188,398	963,115	478
5	Spy	9/20/12	4.10%	73,413	1,255,749	296
6	Ted (us)	9/27/12	3.00%	49,642	217,239	204
7	Wolf Children (jp)	9/13/12	1.30%	24,286	297,537	124
8	Tad the Lost Explorer (us)	9/20/12	0.50%	10,432	202,045	96
9	Take This Waltz (ca)	9/27/12	0.40%	6,291	19,412	22
10	13 (us)	10/3/12	0.30%	5,760	8,670	108

Following a raft of holiday weekdays in the wake of the Chuseok holiday, business has continued to be brisk though still largely dominated by one enormous holiday release. Total admissions came in at 1.77 million, almost 40% over last year's comparable weekend, while the local market remained healthy at 70%.

In its fourth weekend, Masquerade once again topped the chart with a commanding 849,999. However, the real story were the preceding weekdays which, together with this past weekend, cobbled together 3 million admissions, making the film the second-biggest hit of the year with still plenty of gas left in the tank.

Taken 2 remained in second place with 271,598, though that represented a 60% slide. Still, it crossed the two million mark, a rare feat for a Hollywood thriller.

Opening wide this weekend, Korean shaman comedy Ghost Sweepers underwhelmed with 264,961. The confused marketing likely hurt this film's chances but with Masquerade performing so well it's hard to see how any other Korean film could have stolen its thunder.

Pixar animation Brave held on to 4th spot and most of its audience for 188,398 and is now a fraction away from the one million mark. Not an incredible result but nevertheless a necessary milestone for this kind of film.

Spy dropped two spots and lost a lot of business as it attracted another 73,413 spectators. The film was optimistically positioned as a Chuseok release but with only 1.2 million in the tank after a few weeks of release, it is a fair to say that its performance has been a disappointment.

Anticipated thriller A Company Man, staring So Ji-seob, opens next week and will likely have a good outing though Masquerade may not be ready to give up its crown.

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 night (Korean Standard Time) on Modern Korean Cinema. For other weekly features, take a look at Korean Cinema News and the Weekly Korean Reviews. Reviews and features on Korean film also appear regularly on the site. 

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