TAKE POINT Fails to Take the Lead from AQUAMAN

A year of mixed fortunes at the box office ended on a down note as several titles failed to break through during a weak end-of-year period. Local titles struggled badly with only a 39% market share (compared to 90% this time last year) while admissions were do...

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY Champion Again in Week 7

In the absence of major new titles, the chart was largely the same as holdovers performed well. Business was down marginally to 2.12 million sales, while Hollywood took back the market share advantage after clinching 51% of sales. In its seventh weekend, the m...

RAMPANT Bites Down on First Place

The local industry reclaimed the market advantage as a new big-budget genre film swept away the competition during its opening weekend. Sales jumped up by a third to 1.62 million admissions, with Korean films accounting for 70% of that total. After claiming la...

A Triumph for Diversity Films

The Korean box office ended on a bang last year when December delivered by far the best results for Korean and overall sales for the month since records began. Some of that momentum carried through into the early weeks of 2018, but the first quarter of the yea...

Battle of December, Three-Way Showdown

With a few presumed hits coming up short and lower-than-usual attendance at some points of the year, particularly early summer, a lot was banking on December to pick up the slack and close the year on a high note. The end-of-year period (late December and earl...

An Unexpected Jackpot

Box Office Report of 2017 The Korean film market reached new all-time benchmarks for income and admissions in 2017 after a strong December rally. Yet the real story behind the numbers was which unexpected films got audiences the most excited while several seem...

Stranger Than Fiction: Politics & History Inspire Cinema

The Korean box office has had a rocky ride through the first two trimesters of 2017, but this period was not without its success stories. Though controversies and an uneven slate of films presented some obstacles, Korean history remained a strong driver for pr...

Box Office Report for the first quarter of 2017

The first quarter of 2017 was one of few surprises at the Korean box office but one which demonstrated the industry’s stability, both as a global exhibition market and a local production industry. Though not quite reaching the highs of 2013 (55.47 million) or ...

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Continues to Best New Entries

New entries failed to make a significant impression on the charts as the top two spots remained unchanged at the Korean box office. Out of the 1.98 million entries recorded over the weekend, local films lost a little ground, seeing their market share drop to 3...

A Good Enough Year, but the Best Year for Korean Films

Box Office Report of 2016 After five years of consecutive growth, the Korean film industry remained healthy in 2016, though the half-decade streak of gains came to an end as the industry essentially remained flat. Admissions reached 217.02 million, which was d...