Marvel’s blockbuster Black Panther, which features a 20-minute chase scene through Jagalchi Fish Market, Gwangan Bridge many of Busan’s most familiar places, is a box office hit in Korea. During the Lunar New Year holidays, it easily left its rivals behind to take the top spot, and currently still ranks number one, having brought in 4,496,705 viewers to date. At this rate, Black Panther is expected to break the 5-million-viewer-mark. The film reported investing approximately USD 6.5 million for its shoot in Korea, which is more than double the average production cost (about USD 2.4 million) of local commercial films. BONG Joon-ho’s Okja (2017), with its total production budget of USD 50 million provided by Netflix, was shot on location in Seoul and Gangwon Province and spent USD 10 million on production in Korea. This fantasy adventure film brought only 321,550 moviegoers but it is difficult to base its success on audience numbers because it is an original movie backed by online streaming giant Netflix. 

The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) is the top-grossing movie among foreign films which were shot on location in Korea. Filmed around Gangnam and Mapo Grand Bridge in Seoul, it attracted 10,494,499 moviegoers. Overall, the movie is second only to Avatar (2009) (13,302,637 viewers) among foreign films released in Korea. Other foreign movies that have had significant shoots in Korea include sci-fi flick Colossal (2017), which stars Anne Hathaway as a heroine attempting to defeat a monster that mysteriously appears in Seoul, and Japanese zombie thriller I am a Hero (2016), which features horrible zombies at an outlet mall in Paju. Compared to the other Hollywood blockbusters, neither faired well in their mission to promote Korea to the world.