KBO: New World Holds Firm During Slow Weekend (03/08-03/10, 2013)

New World Holds Firm During Slow Weekend

	Title	Release Date	Market Share	Weekend	Total	Screens
1	New World	13/02/21	30.90%	508,893	3,369,650	555
2	Miracle in Cell No.7	13/01/23	16.70%	291,884	12,177,983	433
3	Psychometry	13/03/07	14.80%	242,319	297,330	429
4	Oz: The Great and Powerful (us)	13/03/07	13.60%	208,962	228,696	425
5	Jack the Giant Slayer (us)	13/02/28	8.60%	147,478	885,989	364
6	Zero Dark Thirty (us)	13/03/07	3.50%	61,171	72,222	258
7	The Berlin File	13/01/30	3.40%	56,401	7,100,309	287
8	12 Chinese Zodiac Heads (cn)	13/02/27	2.40%	41,665	296,010	187
9	Stoker (us)	13/02/28	2.40%	38,430	343,752	204
10	b (In)	13/02/21	0.90%	17,266	302,550	168

For the first time in 2013, business was down from 2012. Admissions dropped over 40% to 1.65 million, which was a fraction below last year's 1.7. It's not all bad news though as two out of every three tickets sold were for local releases, marginally up from last year's three out of five.

Leading the fray for the the third time was the gang epic New World which took in another 508,893 spectators to lift its total well over 3.3 million admissions. It's a big result for a genre pic but its 40% decline will prevent it from getting close to last year's hit Nameless Gangster, which almost went over the five million mark.

Once again at number two was the hit Miracle in Cell No.7 with 291,884 more admissions. This brought its total over the 12 million mark and it is now the fifth highest-grossing Korean film of all time, though after its most recent 62% drop, it is now longer in contention for the elusive all-time number one spot.

CJ's supernatural thriller Psychometry had a bad start with 242,319 admissions. Despite the pairing of popular stars Kim Gang-woo and TV's Kim Beom, the youth demographic didn't make it out for this one. Perhaps not surprising as they are not the most reliable group to count on shelling out money for the theater these days.

Oz: The Great and Powerful began its run with 208,962, a fraction of its US bow, while Jack the Giant Slayer took in another 147,478 as it stumbled 75% in its sophomore frame.

Meanwhile, The Berlin File became the best selling action of all time during the week. It has recorded 7.1 million admissions to date.

The biggest film that will come out next week is Spielberg's Lincoln but I doubt this is going to crash the chart so perhaps New World will have a fourth weekend at the top of the chart. In any case it will likely be another depressed weekend.

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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