Korean Box Office Update (11/18-11/20, 2011)

Weekend of November 18-20:

	Title	Release Date	Weekend	Total
1	Punch	10/20/11	361,807	4,126,808
2	Immortals (us)	11/10/11	197,472	952,258
3	Moneyball (us)	11/17/11	186,122	211,097
4	Real Steel (us)	10/12/11	143,526	3,140,901
5	You're My Pet	11/10/11	87,572	411,506
6	Penny Pinchers	11/10/11	62,831	316,878
7	Tower Heist (us)	11/17/11	34,792	40,625
8	Perfect Partner	11/17/11	34,282	46,183
9	Horrible Bosses (us)	11/17/11	20,879	25,029
10	Wu Xia (China)	11/17/11	10,427	12,904
-	Couples	11/2/11	8,655	348,907
-	A Reason to Live	10/27/11	7,200	130,720
-	Merry Christmas, North!	11/17/11	4,098	4,956
-	Always	10/20/11	3,065	1,019,595
-	Dancing Cat	11/17/11	2,965	4,189

South Korea box office was a little slow this past weekend with total admissions amounting to 1.21 million, which nevertheless was marginally above last year's total for the comparable weekend.  More worrying is that the Korean market share dipped below the 50% mark for the first time in a little over a month, coming in at 45%, last year the figure was 63%.  While not alarming, this slight lull can mostly attributed to a lack of mainstream Korean films in the marketplace, only 4 of the 10 were Korean this week.

Punch stayed at no.1 once again for its fifth consecutive weekend after another small drop (<20%) saw it add 361,807 tickets to its 4,126,808 total.  The vaunted five million mark is all but certain at this point, it may cross it in as little as 10 days and could still go further still.  I don't think it will challenge War of the Arrows or Sunny a the top of the yearly chart but if it continues to play well through Christmas it may well come very close.

Immortals say its take halved to 197,472 this weekend after its strong start and is presently a shade off the 1 million mark, though actuals may well push it above.  Moneyball had a decent debut at no.3 with 186,122 most likely buoyed by star Brad Pitt's first visit to the peninsula.  Real Steel barely dropped at all and added another 143,526 to its coffers as it soared past the 3 million point.

You're My Pet, which had a curious injunction to ban it dismissed last week, made 87,572 this weekend which was a little over half of its opening.  The pic which was designed for and has been performing well with young woman has being doing well and may have benefited from the publicity of the injunction.

Penny Pinchers, which has had some good word of mouth, wound up with 62,831 and seems poised to cross half a million.  As some people have noted, including Darcy Paquet, the romantic comedy focusses on more impoverished leads than is usually the case which is a welcome change from the standard romcoms.

Tower Heist opened with 34,792 and I believe that this was previews so it may challenge for the top spot next weekend, which would be a shame since I despise Brett Ratner.

Perfect Partner made 34,282 this weekend in a limited amount of theaters.  Though this was already its second weekend I imagine it will go wider next week.

Horrible Bosses from the US and Wuxia from China rounded out the top 10 with underwhelming figures, 20,879 and 10,427 respectively.

Outside of the top 10: Couples took another big tumble; A Reason to Live stayed steady with last week and has surprised in the late stages of its run; Documentaries Merry Christmas, North! and Dancing Cat opened; and Always squeaked by the 1 million mark.


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 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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