Report
BAG GUYS Reigns over Powerful Chuseok Box Office
Local Titles Claim 97% of Holiday Sales
With the Chuseok holidays underway, the box office almost tripled compared to last week, as just over 4 million tickets were snatched up over the past weekend. With three major new titles timed for the holidays, it was a bonanza for the local industry, as Korean films claimed all of the top five spots and accounted for a massive 97% of all sales.
Although it debuted in second place on Wednesday, the CJ Entertainment title The Bad Guys: Reign of Chaos with Don LEE (aka MA Dong-seok), a spinoff of the Bad Guys TV drama series, quickly became the top holiday offering and claimed first place over the weekend with a terrific 1.97 million viewers (USD 14.95 million). Over five days, the film has welcomed 2.68 million spectators (USD 20.18 million), with plenty more surely on the way.
Tazza: One Eyed Jack, the third instalment in the popular card shark series, was the top choice last Wednesday but lost some momentum going into the weekend, where it charted in second with 981,000 entries (USD 7.64 million). The Lotte Cultureworks title has sold 1.68 million tickets (USD 12.8 million) since Wednesday.
Showbox’s comedy CHEER UP, MR. LEE, with CHA Seung-won and from LUCK-KEY (2016) director LEE Gae-byok, opened in third place with 643,000 sales (USD 4.75 million), with a total of 885,000 admissions (USD 6.48 million) recorded over five days.
Down two spots and 54% in its second week was the local animation Hello Carbot the Movie: Save the Moon, which added 119,000 spectators (USD 813,000), raising its total to 503,000 entries (USD 3.3 million).
Closing out the top five was the summer hit EXIT, which added another 96,000 sales (USD 725,000), bringing its haul to a stellar 9.39 million admissions (USD 66.81 million).
Rising one spot and 11% was the hit indie drama House of Hummingbird which filled 15,000 seats (USD 101,000) in its third week, giving the film an impressive 73,000 admissions (USD 506,000) to date.
While Chuseok titles should continue to draw crowds, this coming week will welcome two new major foreign titles, the sci-fi Ad Astra with Brad PITT and the musical comedy-drama Yesterday.
