Venom Last Dance

Sony’s Venom: The Last Dance, starring Tom Hardy, grossed $2.2m, roughly a third of all ticket sales from Friday to Sunday, at the South Korean box office on its second weekend on release, November 1-3, according to Kobis.

The third instalment in the franchise now has a total gross of $6.6m as of November 4. This is less than its predecessor Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which opened during the pandemic but took $8.8m over its first two weekends.

After debuting in first place on Wednesday (October 30), CJ ENM’s local comedy title Amazon Bullseye fell to second over the weekend with $1.4m. Directed by Kim Changju, the comedy reunites the writers and stars of Extreme Job, which grossed over $100m.

Finecut’s A Normal Family, a drama adapted from Herman Koch’s Dutch novel The Dinner ranked third with $334,000, less than half of its earnings last week. The film premiered at Toronto 2023 and has received critical praise since its release on October 16, and has posted a cume of $4m to date.

In fourth place, Showbox’s Love In The Big City, another book-to-film adaptation, garnered $280,000. Now in its fifth week at the box office, the film features Kim Go-eun from this year’s top grosser Exhuma.

Warner Bros’ fifth anniversary re-release of 2019 Japanese animation Weathering With You claimed $270,000 over the weekend. Suzume, the latest film from director Makoto Shinkai, was the fourth highest-grossing film in Korea last year with a cume of $41m.

Universal Pictures’ animation The Wild Robot took sixth with $175,000 on its fifth weekend, contributing to a cume of $4.1m. In seventh was Longlegs, making its debut with $116,000, for Green Narae Media.

Snack film 4:44: Time Of Fear, drew over 26,000 admissions for $75,000, placing it in eighth. With a running time of just 44 minutes and priced at approximately $3 (4,000 KRW) per ticket, the release highlights the growing demand for quick, accessible content as well as the increasing interest from distributors and production companies in diversifying film formats.

At ninth was a re-release of 2004 classic romantic drama The Notebook, which has found surprising success since its release on October 9, consistently placing in the top 10 and selling over 16,000 tickets.

Finally, Megabox’s Elisabeth: The Musical Live scraped into the top 10 with a cume of $664,000 after two weeks.

For October as a whole, South Korea’s box-office gross totalled $44 million, almost 50% less of August’s $84 million, and a 9% decline on the total box office of October 2023.

November marks the beginning of the off-peak season for Korean cinemagoers, following the summer rush and significant holidays including Chuseok. Anticipated releases include the Korean remake of the Taiwanese hit Hear Me on November 6. The film stars rising actor Hong Kyung as a deliveryman who falls for a hearing-impaired woman portrayed by Roh Yoon-seo.