Korean Box Office: Iron Man 3 Has Gargantuan Debut (04/26-04/28, 2013)

There was only one game in town this weekend as the blockbuster Iron Man 3 almost set a new opening weekend record (currently held by Transformers 2). It was slim pickings for everything else. Total business powered to 2.63 million (up from 2.09 in 2012) and the local market was all but non-existent, failing to reach 10%, a lot lower than the 27% recorded last year when The Avengers opened.

	Title	Release Date	Market Share	Weekend	Total	Screens
1	Iron Man 3 (us)	13/04/25	83.80%	2,202,252	2,625,465	1380
2	Fists of Legend	13/04/10	5.00%	143,754	1,543,066	426
3	Oblivion	13/04/11	2.60%	143,619	1,416,408	327
4	Crayon Shin-Chan (jp)	13/04/25	2.20%	80,337	78,692	290
5	Running Man	13/04/04	1.20%	79,218	1,377,261	230
6	Pinocchio (it/mx/sp/lx/bl)	13/04/25	1.00%	47,169	37,117	283
7	Song for You (uk)	13/04/18	0.80%	47,057	169,074	187
8	Neon Genesis Evangelion: Q (jp)	13/04/25	0.80%	26,597	32,792	59
9	To Rome With Love (us/it/sp)	13/04/18	0.80%	23,675	111,979	107
10	Norigae	13/04/18	0.50%	18,887	158,018	175

The third Iron Man took an astounding 2,202,252 admissions in its opening weekend, well above its predecessor's already impressive 1.36 million in 2011. The film will have no trouble crossing Iron Man 2's total (4.45 million) and could also improve on The Avengers' 7.07 million last year.

With Iron Man 3 taking 83.8% of the weekend's business, holdovers all took a dive. Briefly recapping how they fared: Fists of Legend held at number with 143,754 after a 58% fall; Oblivion was down 80% for 143,619; Japanese anima Crayon Shin-Chan opened to 80,337; and Running Man slowed 73% for 79,218.

Looking ahead to next week the only thing we're likely to see is a repeat at the top of the charts with the 3D re-release of Finding Nemo and local Kim In-gwon comedy National Singing Contest drumming up some soft business.

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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