{"id":181395,"date":"2023-01-09T07:49:02","date_gmt":"2023-01-09T07:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/korea-box-office-avatar-2-fourth-weekend-win\/"},"modified":"2023-01-09T07:49:02","modified_gmt":"2023-01-09T07:49:02","slug":"korea-box-office-avatar-2-fourth-weekend-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/korea-box-office-avatar-2-fourth-weekend-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Korea Box Office: ‘Avatar 2’ Fourth Weekend Win"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\tSouth Korea’s box office continued its \u201cAvatar\u201d-powered strong run into a fourth weekend, with overall takings exceeding $15 million during the first normal Friday to Sunday of the new year.<\/p>\n

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\t\u201cAvatar: The Way of Water\u201d remained in the top position that it has enjoyed since release in mid-December. But there were good showings for local holdover title \u201cHero\u201d and for new release \u201cThe First Slam Dunk.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\u201cAvatar 2\u201d took $6.42 million in its fourth weekend of release, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic). That was a 51% weekend-on-weekend drop after two previous weekends when the movie had held extremely strongly and benefited from the Christmas and New Year holiday seasons. Since releasing on Dec. 14, 2022, the title has now accumulated a total of $87.8 million. Its market share dropped to 42% over the weekend, the first time it has been below half since its debut.<\/p>\n

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\t\u201cHero,\u201d an historical drama depicting Korean anti-Japanese activists in occupied Manchuria, held on to the second place that it has enjoyed since releasing on Dec. 21. It earned $2.62 million in its third weekend of release and claimed a 16.8% market share. Directed by consistent hitmaker, JK Youn, the movie now has a running total of $17.5 million.<\/p>\n

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\tJapanese animation movie \u201cThe First Slam Dunk\u201d was the weekend’s highest new opener. It earned $2.61 million over the weekend and enjoyed a 16.7% market share. Over the five days since its Wednesday debut, it has earned $3.49 million.<\/p>\n

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\tTwo other new release titles followed. \u201cPuss in Boots: The Last Wish\u201d opened with $1.69 million over the weekend and $2.40 over its opening five days. Korean-produced \u201cSwitch\u201d earned $1.10 million over the weekend and $1.78 million over five days.<\/p>\n

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\tJapanese title \u201cEven if This Love Disappears From the World Tonight\u201d continued its chart run, despite releasing on Nov. 30, 2022. It earned $459,000 in sixth place for a cumulative of $6.53 million built up over seven weekends.<\/p>\n

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\t\u201cThe Night Owl,\u201d which had topped the Korean chart for three weekends before the release of \u201cAvatar 2,\u201d took seventh place with a weekend score of $151,000. After seven weekends on release, it has a cumulative of $26.0 million.<\/p>\n

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\t\u201cShinbi’s Haunted House: The Dimension Ghost and the Seven Worlds\u201d added $132,000 in its fourth weekend, for a cumulative of $3.14 million.<\/p>\n

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\tKorean-made \u201cGentleman\u201d sank quickly from a third-placed opening a week earlier to ninth place. Earnings crumpled by 90% as it took $84,000, for a 12-day cumulative of $1.62 million.<\/p>\n

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\tThere was a tenth-place opening for George Miller’s \u201cThree Thousand Years of Longing,\u201d which took $52,000 between Friday and Sunday, and $99,000 over its opening five days.<\/p>\n

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\tThe nationwide weekend total weighed in at $15.6 million, a level scarcely seen between September and November, but which was comfortably exceeded during the reign of \u201cAvatar.\u201d It remains to be seen whether Korean audiences have rediscovered the cinema-going habit.<\/p>\n

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\tAnnual box office in 2022 was up by 96% to KRW1.16 trillion, compared with a disastrous 2021 (and a fractionally worse 2020). Market share for Korean movies returned above half, to 56%, restoring the normality that had held for a decade until COVID-hit 2021. In terms of admissions, the year-on-year gain was 87% (from 60.5 million in 2021 to 113 million in 2022), revealing the impact of somewhat higher ticket prices.<\/p>\n

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\tBut last year’s Korean box office recovery was not consistent. After a summer releasing flurry, revenues plummeted through the autumn months. Commentators have pointed to a weak supply of new titles, but also to growing competition for consumers’ time and wallets, especially from the country’s hyper-competitive streaming video sector.<\/p>\n

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\tAnd while 2022 was an improvement compared with the two previous years, gross box office lagged 39% behind 2019, when aggregate revenues were KRW1.91 trillion and Korea was the world’s fourth largest box office market.<\/p>\n

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\tThe strength of the US dollar compared with the Korean Won also undermines the global value of the Korean cinema marketplace. Using year end conversion rates for each year, the size of the Korean theatrical market expressed in dollars was $1.65 billion in 2019, $496 million in 2020, $492 million in 2021 and $922 million in 2022 \u2013 the latter is a 45% deficit compared with 2019 .<\/p>\n

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\tIn cinema admissions terms, the contrast between the pre-COVID era and Korea’s present is also stark: the 2022 attendance total was only 49% of 2019’s 227 million.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n