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...

KEYS TO THE HEART Rises to 1st

No new releases cracked the top five over the past weekend, which saw local titles claim back the majority share after briefly losing it last week to Hollywood. With the absence of strong new business, sales were down about 25% to 2.33 million with Korean prod...

THE MAZE RUNNER Finds Way to Top of the Charts

Last year’s end-of-year titans finally relinquished their hold on the top of the chart to make way for new releases as a Hollywood film topped the rankings for the first time since Justice League in late November. It was also the first time Korea fell short of...

1987 Tops COCO Opening as It Ascends to Top Rank

ALONG WITH THE GODS Becomes 6th Most Successful Korean Film of All Time Korea’s end-of-year hits switched places during another busy early January frame which welcomed 3.14 million viewers. Hollywood imports once again failed to topple last year’s local blockb...

ALONG WITH THE GODS Threepeats as It Rises Through All Time Chart

Business remained brisk during the first weekend of the year as two homegrown hits continued to draw big crowds, with one of those rising on the all-time box office list. All told, 3.64 million tickets were sold with local releases accounting for 69% of sales....

ALONG WITH THE GODS Continues March Towards Record Books

Closing out the year with a bang was the busiest New Year’s Eve weekend on record, during which three local releases controlled the charts. Just over 90% of tickets went to domestic product as a stellar 4.59 million viewers marched into theaters just ahead of ...

ALONG WITH THE GODS Threatens to Rewrite Record Books

Admissions shot up almost 80% in the weekend before Christmas, which welcomed a new local blockbuster attempting to rewrite the record books. Out of the gargantuan 4.42 million tickets sold (a figure generally only seen in late July or early August), 81% were ...

STEEL RAIN Pours on THE LAST JEDI’s Parade

The end of year period began with a bang in Korea, but not the way it did in the rest of the world as Disney’s latest Star Wars installment failed to top the market, despite record openings elsewhere. Sales were up over 30% week-on-week to 2.5 million admissio...