Korean Zombie Hit Pushes WONDER WOMAN Down
YEON Sang-ho’s hit zombie sequel Peninsula (2020) opened in cinemas in Japan on January 1, where it reached seventh place on the charts for four consecutive days, making it the top-performing non-Japanese film on the charts. It pushed down the Warner Bros tentpole Wonder Woman 1984 to claim first place among foreign films.
In those four days the film has welcomed almost 100,000 viewers in Japan. The prequel webtoon ‘Peninsula Prequel 631’, previously released in Korea, is also being published locally, which may help the film remain competitive in the marketplace.
A sequel to the worldwide TRAIN TO BUSAN (2016), which screened in the midnight section of the Cannes Film Festival, Peninsula (2020) was one of the films officially selected for this year’s Cannes Film Festival and was sold to 190 markets prior to its debut.
Starring GANG Dong-won and LEE Jung-hyun, Peninsula (2020) takes place four years after the events of TRAIN TO BUSAN (2016) and focuses on a group of Korean mercenaries who return to Korea to search for a truck filled with cash, but they encounter several difficulties along the way.
The film was first released on July 15 in Korea, where it welcomed 3.8 million viewers (USD 30.4 million). To date, the film has been released in around 40 territories and its global box office take has surpassed USD 60 million.
The top six spots at the Japanese box office are all currently held by local films, including Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train in first place, which has led the local charts for 12 weeks and recently became the most successful Japanese film of all time.